Dungeon Master: It's a Magical World

[TimBaril]

"Hey. You wanna buy a dungeon?" The shady salesman's eyes warily shifted left and right like some cartoon villain before returning to land on what he seemed to think was a potential customer. Not that he looked much like a door-to-door salesman. He was scruffy and unshaved, his blue eyes were manic, and he wore unwashed peasant clothes and mud-caked boots that badly needed replacing. His dark blonde, mussy hair looked like something an architecturally-challenged bird would nest in. He wore a dark blue cloak, the colour faded and the edges ratty. He grabbed the center of the cloak with both hands and opened it in the manner of an exhibitionist, revealing a dozen cubes hanging on the insides. Each was the size of a softball or grapefruit and seemingly made of a mix of stone and metal.

Kai stood in his doorway, holding his door open, and looked up at the man like he was nuts. And by doorway, we mean the opening of a very small and short cave in the side of a small dirt hill in the forest. And by door, we mean a bunch of sticks he'd collected from the surrounding forest and leaned over the opening of the cave to kinda hide it from predators. And by look up, we mean way up because Kai now stood only a half-meter tall, and some of that meter was due to his enormous, spiky ears. Because he was no longer human; he was now a gremlin. Just like the ones in those awesome movies.

The salesman waggled his eyebrows and gave Kai a slick smile. "Come on. You know you wanna…"

Kai stared in silent disbelief for a long minute. He was puzzled, which had been a recurring theme the past three days, alongside a boatload of anger. He looked around the forest outside in both directions. "Where the frick did you come from?" Was there a road nearby he hadn't seen despite all his searching?

The salesman shrugged. "The question isn't where I come from; it's where are you going? Where do you see yourself in five years? Still cooped up in a tiny, wet cave, scrounging for grubs and tubers as you scratch out a feral existence in the wilderness? Or maybe out there, somewhere, with arrows in your back and a nice, shiny sword in your smelly guts after being run down by adventurers? Or," he leaned in and knowingly grinned, "are you gonna be running your very own, top-of-the-line, badass, gold-making dungeon?" He wiggled the cloak he still held open. The dangling cubes, his sketchy merchandise, swung and clinked together. A beam of morning sunlight glinted off one, revealing a stone and coppery texture.

Kai stared for another long minute. This guy was certifiably crazy. The very first sentient creature he'd met in this stupid world, and it was a frickin' travelling door-to-door salesman trying to rip him off with some idiotic scam. Kai was tense. He was frustrated. He was stressed the hell out. He'd had a life on another world and been ripped out of it without warning. Ok, maybe not a great life, but still a life. Sure, he hadn't had a girlfriend in a few months…years. He muttered to himself, "Wow." He thought back and did some rapid calculations. Had three years gone by since…? His eyes widened. "No way."

Honestly, his 'career' had been nothing to crow about. He'd been a bookkeeper, kind of a mediocre one because he'd never been one for big firms and office politics and climbing the whole brown-nosing ladder. Also, he wasn't very good with numbers, which was a pretty awful trait in a bookkeeper whose job is almost entirely numbers, and why he relied really heavily on his calculator and YouTube tutorials. He'd worked in a small office on the edge of the suburbs, prepping too many returns at tax time and doing not enough work the rest of the year. It was kind of hard to maintain any kind of enthusiasm for the future when he'd realized three years into his career that he hated bookkeeping, a feeling that had grown into a hateful passion as the years had gone by, but he'd been unwilling to take a leap of faith and try anything else because it was, at the very least, a stable job.

Or it had been. Until some jerk tech bros had come along and started developing artificial intelligence with zero thought as to how it would impact people. Now, the writing was on the wall. Layoffs were already happening in the name of efficiency and profitability. Everyone in the industry knew it was only a matter of time before they were replaced by an app on people's phones, and that steady income he'd been relying on would have vanished. But even knowing that, dread seeping into his daily life as he constantly worried about the future, he still hadn't been able to leave the career behind for something else because, at that point, what else was there? He felt too old to go back to school and didn't have any skills to transfer into another industry, and there was just no telling how AI was going to mess the whole bloody economy up. Imagine spending a fortune going back to school and retraining, only to have AI murder the new career you'd sunk all that time, money, and hope into. So, for the past couple of years, he'd been frozen in place, miserable and afraid.

Then he'd frickin' died.

Or, at least, that's what he'd figured had happened. He didn't really have the faintest clue what was going on. It's not like there'd been that mysterious Japanese truck-kun coming out of nowhere like in some light novel. He'd gone home from work on Friday night, played videogames for hours despite being fully aware that he wasted way too much of his life on that crap, stared at half-naked women on social media because he was apparently lonely but too pathetic to find a new girlfriend, and then crawled into bed. It was basically the same thing he did every day.

But then Saturday had come. Saturday was the best day of the week by far. Sunday wasn't bad, but knowing you had to go to work the next day sucked a lot of the fun out of it. Saturday, however, was always full of hope and promise. To be fair, he spent too much time playing video games and watching crap TV, but at least he felt free.

That Saturday, however, had been something really special. Some guy on the other side of town had opened a new restaurant a while back. It was just a hamburger joint, except it wasn't just a hamburger joint. Apparently, this chef was some kind of culinary genius, the kind who comes along once in a generation, who had taken the humble burger to new heights.

The foodie in the local paper said he'd taken one bite and wept. A guy from the NY Times had gotten through half a burger and lamented that he'd never be able to review another burger again because they would all be inferior and remind him of this. There were even rumours online that the burger was so delicious that it had saved no less than three marriages.

The restaurant had exploded in popularity. It had been all over the news and social media. Cooking shows were coming from around the world to film episodes there. It was impossible to get in, with lines around the block the first two months they'd been open. Kai had been on a waiting list to get in for over ten weeks. He loved hamburgers. As far as he was concerned, they were America's greatest contribution to global food culture.

That Saturday, he'd finally arrived at the restaurant. Crammed into a chair in a space that was wall-to-wall people in various stages of awe and delight, he'd received his burger like it was the holy grail. He wasn't one of those people who took photos of everything and put it online. He wanted to fully immerse himself in the joy of the moment. He just sat and stared at the way the bun had been perfectly toasted and smelled the sensual scents of savoury roasted meat and melted cheese. Delicately taking the hamburger in both hands, his mouth watering, he'd slowly brought it to his lips, opened his mouth, and prepared to take a bite out of the greatest food experience of his life.

Before he could, the most searing and unimaginable pain ever had torn through him. He'd felt himself get ripped out of his body, burned alive, then flung, screaming and on fire, through the cosmos for who knew how long before slamming into darkness. Then he'd woken up, full of ghostly pain from whatever soul-wrenching ordeal he'd gone through.

And he'd discovered that he was now a gremlin.

Yep, just like the old movies, but slightly bigger. Dark green skin? Check. Mouth full of sharp teeth? Yep! He had three fingers and a thumb on each hand and three toes on each foot, and all of them ended in nasty little claws. The only thing remotely akin to his old body was the fact that he was still humanoid.

Worse, his god-tier hamburger was gone!

He'd spent most of the past three days searching in all directions for some sign of civilization, desperate for it and terrified of it at the same time, starving because he didn't want to eat grubs or beetles or whatever else could be found crawling around the forest floor. There'd been a lot of hours spent screaming up at the sky, demanding whatever entity had brought him here show itself and apologize and take Kai back the hell home! When those cries for help and mercy and rants of furious promises of retribution had gone unanswered, he'd stumbled over this cave and decided to hole up, literally, in the dank space. He hadn't ventured far since, in large part because an owl-bear — half-owl and half-bear — had come rambling along, and Kai did not want to end up as food.

Now, here he was, staring up at the first human, the first person he'd seen since coming here, and they wanted to sell him some kind of… He squinted at the things under the man's cloak. "You want me to buy a what now?" To be fair, the shock of this encounter might have slowed his brain down, especially after the soul trauma and ongoing emotional rollercoaster of his arrival.

The man exclaimed, "A dungeon!" He reached under his cloak and pulled free one of the cubes. Bending over a little further because Kai was so short, he held it out before Kai's eyes like he was displaying a fantastic treasure. "Your very own magical, grow-it-yourself dungeon. Trust me, it's a steal." He chuckled as if laughing at his own joke.

Kai looked up at the salesman. He looked down at himself. At the salesman. At himself. At the salesman. In a tone that clearly asked, 'Are you stupid?, he stated, "I'm a gremlin."

The man gave him an approving look. "Good for you, my friend. Self-awareness is key to personal growth."

"I'm just a monster. Standing in a cave the size of a car. Not even a big car, more like one of those mini cars they drive in Europe because the roads are so tiny. A tiny little cave with nothing but air and some dirt in it. Does it look like I have any money to buy anything?"

 

[TimBaril]

The salesman pulled the cube back as he straightened, winked and clucked his tongue with a roguish smile. "Don't you worry, sir." He put the cube back under his cloak and pulled out a roll of paper. With a flick of his wrist, it rolled open. It was a rather nice scroll, with heavy paper filled with dense paragraphs in thick ink written in that old-timey cursive that nobody born after 1800 could read without a magnifying glass and a lot of effort. There was a gold seal at the bottom and a line for someone to sign.

Kai studied it for a moment. "Is that a contract?"

"It is indeed! My, aren't you the most educated gremlin I've ever come across. This here is a contract for purchase with payments deferred, with annual sums owing as a percentage of revenue. A starter plan for the discerning gentleman dungeon master." His tone became understanding. "Don't worry, sir. Nobody expects you to be making a mint right off the bat. These things take time. A good dungeon must be nourished and grown. They take time to be discovered, longer for a reputation to develop, and even longer when you're far from any significant population centers. Why, you could go five years, ten, without paying a single copper. And that's fine! You don't pay until you start earning."

"Like, you take a percentage of revenue forever?"

"No no no! Only until the purchase price is paid off, along with a teeny, tiny, barely noticeable amount of interest. Really, it's hardly worth mentioning it's so small; it's just there for form's sake more than anything. Once the dungeon core is paid in full, the entire dungeon is yours, free and clear."

"Uh-huh."

Arms gesturing like some kind of Shakespearean performer, the man spoke with passion and enthusiasm, "Just imagine it! You, right now, nothing but a strapping young gremlin, down on his luck, can't even afford a loincloth. You're poor, you're hungry, and your life lacks meaning and purpose beyond meagre survival. Now, imagine you, in the future, proud owner of the wickedest, vilest, most mysterious, most profitable dungeon in the land. You sit atop your grand design as adventurers from all corners of the world flock to your door to plumb its depths in search of glory and power and to steal your treasures. And as they succumb to your traps and monsters and lose themselves forever in your dungeon's depths, you'll be raking gold in hand over claw, laughing all the way to the dragonic bank."

Kai blinked. "Dragons own a bank?"

"The financially responsible ones do. Only a fool would accumulate all that wealth and then just, what, sit on a bed of gold all day and guard it? What a waste when you can put that gold to work, making even more gold!"

Kai shook his head. This was all coming at him so fast. He couldn't think clearly. "Wait. You're telling me that these things you've got are, what, dungeon cores? I plant the thing and grow a dungeon? And then make money off it?"

The salesman beamed. "Simple, right? Look, you've already got your very own cave. You're off to a great start. I've got a very nice below-ground core that would be just the thing for you."

"How can a dungeon grow?"

"Magically, of course!" He laughed way too hard. When Kai didn't follow suit, the man hastily explained, "Dungeon cores are connected to the weave itself, the source of all magic that even the divinities take their powers from. It's part of the fabric of the local universe. Your dungeon will become part of the fabric of the world. They all start small; no helping that. But as the dungeon master, you get to single-handedly design your dream dungeon. The more visitors you get, the better your design, and the more you'll be able to expand, adding rooms and whole new floors. Build your own traps and lay out the labyrinth of your dreams. Want lots of dark stone and all kinds of torture equipment and whips and chains? Done! Want an old buried elven city that suffered some strange cataclysm far in the past, with flowing staircases and elegant water features? You can have it! Fill it with an entire compendium of monsters. Hire bandits to patrol the halls. Enlist a necromancer to flood multiple levels with undead. Why, you might even talk a young dragon into making its home deep in the lower stratum." He paused, then became hesitant and serious. "Honestly, I'd be very careful about that last part. Make sure you do the deal in writing and get the absolute best lawyer money can rent. Otherwise, that dragon is going to sucker you something fierce, and the next thing you know, you're endlessly bleeding cash to the greedy bugger, and there's nothing you can do about it." He shook a stern finger in warning.

Kai was pretty sure he was hallucinating. Or maybe thirst and starvation were warping his mind. Or else this world was weird as hell. He looked down at his gremlin body. He sighed. Probably weird as hell. He looked at the contract. He couldn't make out more than a word here and there.

The salesman continued his spiel, "And the best part! If you manage to grow your dungeon all the way to one hundred floors, your dungeon will be recognized as a world feature. Your core will connect directly to the divine realm, and you'll be given the opportunity to ask a boon directly from the divinities themselves!"

Kai was stunned. "You mean, as a reward, I get to ask the gods for something, and they'll grant it?"

"Yes! Exactly! Isn't it brilliant? All these adventurers coming down into your dark halls in desperate and greedy pursuit of gold and jewels and magical trinkets. Meanwhile, you're not only profiting off all their hard work; you're the one who gets the big prize in the end, not them. Ha!" He swept his arm out and cast his gaze to the sky. "Wealth, power, fame, literal immortality. The gods could grant you anything!"

"Like make me human again? Or send me home so I can finish that burger I'd been really looking forward to?"

The salesman froze as if stunned. He hastily recovered and cleared his throat before replying. "Uh, sure. Yeah. Although, you know, maybe aim a bit higher. I mean, growing a dungeon to one hundred floors is quite the accomplishment, and they're, you know, divine beings. They're capable of a lot. Probably better to ask big and then negotiate down if you have to."

"Right." Kai slowly nodded. So, this shady, sketchy, untrustworthy-looking dude was selling magical dungeons — for free. All Kai had to do was sign this piece of paper with ink that seemed to glow with power when he stared at it too long, and he'd get his very own dungeon starter kit. Then he'd somehow plant the seed or core or whatever and start building the dungeon, making it bigger over time somehow. Then, ask the gods for a prize. That seemed impossible. Wild. Out of this world.

Oh. He wasn't in his world anymore. Right.

Kai scratched his head with a claw. "I dunno..." This seemed way too good to be true. His stomach chose that moment to rumble so loudly they probably heard it three forests over. He could really use that burger right now. Maybe an extra-large fries. Enough cola to swim in. He sighed, lost in a vision of unhealthy fast food.

The salesman snapped his fingers and got another knowing look. "Don't worry. I gotcha." He let go of the contract, which somehow continued to float in the air exactly where it was. Then he dug into a satchel under his cloak. He pulled out a basket of bread that was the size of a wine cask and obviously way too large to have fit in that bag. The thing was bigger than Kai was now. The man put it down in front of Kai, whose eyes became glued to all that food. He gulped.

He hadn't eaten or had anything to drink in days…

The salesman held out a finger, indicating Kai should wait. Then he pulled out a slightly smaller, darker cask and set it down next to the bread. He cracked the top open, pulled the lid off, and revealed a huge amount of jerky. The scent of all that dried, spiced meat hit Kai like a delicious punch in the face. His mouth watered.

"And finally…" The salesman pulled out a massive, steaming, apple-type pie so wide and deep that Kai, in his new body, could have jumped in and used the dish as a bathtub. Somehow, the pie steamed, bringing wafts of baked fruit, cinnamon, and a delicate crust that had been decorated in sweet, sweet icing. The man winked again. "Signing bonus."

At the sight of all that food, Kai's starving stomach seemed to want to tear itself out of his body and attack the food directly. Wiping a line of drool off the corner of his mouth, Kai grouchily snatched the contract out of the air. "Gimme that. You got a pen?"

Even more smug now that the sale was in hand, the salesman's greasy smile shone with triumph. He pulled a feather pen out of somewhere. "Of course."

Kai scribbled his name on the contract, which took some effort because his hands were small and had large claws, making holding a pen difficult.

The salesman took the contract and examined the signature. "Excellent! Can't wait to see just how far you get in the time you have."

Kai froze. "Time I have?"

The salesman nodded, casually saying, "Mm. You know, with your limited lifespan and all. I mean, one would expect it to take hundreds or thousands of years to fully grow a dungeon to one hundred floors, but here you are, a gremlin with a lifespan of, what, twenty or twenty-five years giving it a go? Ballsy, my boy, ballsy indeed!"

Kai's hands flew to his head, and claws dug in in panic. "Gremlins only live twenty-five years? Are you frickin' kidding me?"

"Uh, I think so. I'm not really an expert on the subject. But I'm pretty sure they live longer than house cats…don't they?" Suddenly, he seemed unsure, tapping his chin with one finger and looking off in thought.

Kai looked down at himself in horror. This was far less time than he'd potentially had left as a human. There was no way he was going to be able to grow a dungeon in time to contact the gods and go back to being human in any reasonable timeframe. He was screwed. This stupid dungeon was not going to help him accomplish anything. He was going to be stuck as a gremlin, with no hope of ever being himself again, being human, or going back to his world. He'd never find a job he actually enjoyed, never fall in love or have a family, never read the end of that inn story. This sucked!

He might have gone off the mental rails at that point, but his bodily needs were even stronger. Shock and despair took a backseat to a black hole of hunger as his stomach growled again and brought that basic need back to the fore in force.

Kai barely acknowledged the salesman passing over one of the cubes from under his cloak. All he could think about was all that food. The salesman tried to thank him or something, but all Kai could do was give up and say, "Uh-huh. Fine. Whatever." He tossed the cube over his shoulder in disgust at his situation. Then he face-planted in the pie and began devouring it.

It was sinfully delicious.

Something chimed, a little sparkling melody, and it sounded like it was coming from inside his head. Then, it faded away.

Kai couldn't be bothered to give the retreating salesman or the odd sound any consideration for a good while. He'd been in a pretty miserable mood for days, and this food was the best thing to happen to him in a while. Only when he could eat no more, his belly bulging like he was eight months pregnant and about to give birth to more apple pie, did he finally pull his face out of the dish and sit on the ground, sated and happy for the first time since he'd come to this world.

He licked apple off his face. Well, he didn't know if it was actually apple or just something similar. It was good, though. He took a deep breath and sighed, becoming aware of his surroundings again. He looked around. The salesman was gone. Kai noticed the cube he'd bought sitting on the ground next to him. Curiosity overcame his previous frustration and hopelessness. He reached out and picked it up so he could study it.

It was very heavy, requiring both hands to hold it. About the size of a grapefruit, it was mostly dark, reddish-brown stone. Veins of metal ran through it, mostly copper and something dark that was probably iron. He looked closer and thought he saw flakes of gold and even a gold vein. One corner had a bit of polished silver or some similar metal. He found an odd spot and rubbed it with his thumb. Was that a gem of some kind buried in the thing? He wasn't sure, but it felt like it. Or maybe just a piece of glass.

For a few moments, he just sat there, wondering just how big a sucker he'd been to buy the thing. He hadn't even read the contract and now realized that it might have been a major mistake. A quick look around showed him that the shady merchant hadn't left a copy of the likely magical contract around. Not good. Now, he had no idea of what the terms were.

Sitting there and stewing about his mistake wasn't going to do anything but make him miserable, and there was nothing he could do about it now. He didn't even know what direction the man had gone, so there was no way to chase him down. Not that he could, with legs a fraction of the length of a human's.

With another sigh, he stood, the cube in hand. Might as well see if this thing worked or if he'd bought a hunk of junk. He looked at his little cave. Well, the salesman had mentioned it would make a starting point. Kai strode into the cave, going all the way to the back wall. He placed the so-called dungeon core low on the back wall and pushed it into the soft soil like he was planting a seed. Then he tossed some damp dirt over it to cover it, feeling like an idiot.

At first, nothing happened. Then, to Kai's amazement, the cube shivered all on its own. It sunk into the soil and rock. The earth rumbled. An opening appeared where the cube had been, expanding down and going deeper. He could hear distant groans and rock shifting from somewhere below. It continued for several minutes. Then, it slowed to a stop, and the cave once more fell into silence.

Feeling both awed and nervous, Kai hesitantly stepped towards the opening. A dark tunnel dove into the earth. Thanks to his gremlin low-light vision, he could see that it extended about a dozen human paces down at a shallow angle before levelling out. He stared down into the hole for some time, trying to work up his nerve. "Well, here goes nothing." He slowly descended. At the end of the dirt tunnel, he emerged into a square room, the ceiling, floor, and walls all made of large stone blocks. In the center of the room was a chest, just like the treasure chests you see in video games and pirate art.

The top of the chest flew open. Fireworks and streamers exploded out of the chest while triumphant music played. The sparkling lights popped and faded away. That chime triggered inside of his head again. A panel of white light, like a computer window, appeared in his vision, like some outdated RPG text box. He couldn't help but feel a rising sense of excitement as he read the words:



Welcome to Your New Dungeon!

Dungeon Master

Level 1

 

[TimBaril]

Kai's pulse picked up as he stared at the messages floating in his vision, his little gremlin heart rapidly fluttering in his chest. This was just like one of those stupid litRPG novels or isekai light novels or anime where some idiot gets reborn in a new world and is given overpowered abilities and harems of ditsy followers who call him master like happy slaves, and readers are immersed in an empty, storyless narrative with nothing but progression and escapism and unrestrained wish fulfillment with stat boxes constantly appearing showing random numbers going up every time the protagonist sneezes or takes a dump or climbs a tree.

Sneezing while crapping in a tree +1, you have achieved godhood and can now cast nuclear bombs at your enemies with impunity. BOOM!

"Oh, Master, you're so perfect! Let's bind ten more girls to you with magical contracts."

He gagged. So lame. He much preferred that one with the inn and the no killing goblins… Really good story. He had been a supporter on Patreon for years. Then he remembered he'd never be able to read that story again, and his heart took a nosedive into the ground and then proceeded to shred itself. A tear formed. "Dammit. I love that story!" Maybe they had magical internet here that could connect to the one back home. Or, heck, give it a couple of years, and Scamazon would probably reach even other dimensions or whatever.

The text in his vision faded. A new message appeared:



Please place the entrance to the Admin Area.



A glowing green outline of a door appeared on the blank stone wall in front of him. Wherever he moved his line of sight, the outline followed. He looked around the room, then decided to put it on the wall to the right of the entrance. He looked at the spot where he wanted the door.

"Uh, there." The outline faded away, and the small room became dark again. No door was visible. Confused, he stepped closer, looking harder for the door. Yet there was no handle, no button to press, and he saw no hint of the outline from before. He placed a hand on the stone and gave it a push.

The wall soundlessly swung inward.

He grinned. "Secret door. Sweet!" He sauntered into the new room. Secret doors were da bomb.

The Admin Area was another small, square room made of reddish-brown stone blocks. Facing one wall was a console, like a wide podium or something from Star Trek. The base was rock, but the top gleamed with the telltale sheen of glass. There was nothing else in the small space.

Striding over to the console, Kai found himself looking way up at it. Whoever had created this had designed it for human-sized users. "Hey! Not cool! This is discrimination against short people!" He booted the console in the base.

The base slowly lowered until it was barely off the floor.

"That's better." Kai placed a clawed hand on the glass, his hooked nails clicking on the hard surface.

The console came to life like a computer waking from sleep. Messages appeared:



INITIALIZING. PLEASE WAIT.

CONFIGURING FOR USER…

Choosing Hearths

Selecting Stones

Shuffling Cards

Sabotaging Self Esteem

Hanging Cobwebs

Rewrapping Mummies

Sharpening Vampire Fangs

Shopping for Witch's Brew Ingredients

Draining Blood From Victims

Lousing Zombies

Spraying Stench A21-b

Polishing Mana Crystals

Filling Up Loading Bar



As he read the messages going by, Kai was beset by a mix of emotions. On the one hand, this whole magical dungeon thing was pretty freakin' cool. On the other hand, he was still grieving the loss of his old life and body. This fantasy world stuff seemed exciting. But knowing he probably had less than twenty years to live, depending on how old this new body was, had him kind of scared. The idea of growing this dungeon into something grand and amazing was incredibly daunting. Actually, it was overwhelming. A familiar feeling of negativity came over him.



Sweeping Up Charred Minion Dust

Installing New Timer Fuses

Gathering Otherworldly Spectators

Corralling Enraged Minotaurs

Oiling Up Racks and Whips

Wiping Off Tables

Mentally Scarring Trauma Victims

Positioning Heroes/Villains

Glaring at Innkeeper Regarding Ant Infestation

Shaving Cocker Spaniels

Tightening Hinges on Pit Traps

De-bodying Spikes in Pit Traps



Realistically, there was no way that Kai was ever going to grow this dungeon to a hundred floors, meet some gods, and have some wish granted. It would be nearly impossible. Only some try-hard, natural genius type could do that, and Kai was not that.

So why even try in the first place? Why get excited and invest a bunch of time into this dungeon thing only to have his hopes dashed and have his failure prove what a loser he was? He should just give up, walk away, and go make the best of his life somewhere else.

Kai was not the brightest star in the sky. He'd never been the kind to excel at school; he'd never received an honor grade. He didn't learn things quickly, not as fast as some people, which had been really frustrating at times.



Serving Poisoned Beverages

Choosing Room and Board

Unstraightening Crooks

Bribing Guards

Paying Undead Band to Perform Theme Music

Resetting Booby Traps

Resetting Cocky Traps

Resetting Rusty Axes for Beheading the Non-penitent

Re-casting Vile Curses and Hexes

Summoning Fresh Demons and Your Mom



But if there was one thing that many years and hundreds of TV shows, films, and books had taught him, it was that there was one really big difference between winners and the vast hordes of losers in life:

Winners didn't give up.

That might be an easy lesson to be aware of on an intellectual level, but it was a whole other beast living it on an emotional and applicable level. Case in point: Kai was kind of a loser. He'd never achieved anything great. He'd never been the best at anything. He'd watched other people around him get higher marks, run faster, pick up hotter chicks, get better jobs, and so on and so on. When he hadn't been able to perform as well as the best people in class or at work right away, he'd stared at them with some measure of resentment before defensively trying to shrug it off like it didn't matter, then giving up on himself — and not trying again, not trying harder.



Ghosts Re-haunting

Cleaning Invisible Bridges

Creating Misleading Icons to Encourage Choosing Poorly

Brainstorming with the Sphinx for More Riddles

Raising Ceiling That Slowly Descends

Separating Walls That Slowly Close In

Re-stocking Creepy Crawlies

Breeding Poisonous Snakes

Breeding Sharks with Lasers on Their Heads

Beheading Practice



He'd coasted through life the same as most people, giving up in big ways and in small ones many times. He'd convinced himself that he was a loser, that he couldn't do anything, that he couldn't have more.

He'd told himself that he was never going to run as fast as that other guy in gym class, so why try? He didn't want to fail and look lesser in everyone's eyes. He was never going to look like some Hollywood movie star, so why bother dressing nicely or working out? Beautiful women were never going to look twice at him, so he'd spare himself the rejection and humiliation and just not ask anyone out. He was never going to get promoted because others were smarter, worked harder, and were more popular.

Why bother trying hard when it would all just be a waste of his time and effort and lead to soul-crushing disappointment and pain? He was a loser. He knew this. So many experiences had proven this.

But…what if he was wrong?

A piercing scream tore through the air, causing his heart to stop and a cold sweat to break out. He stared at the screen in panic and immediately figured out why, relaxing.



Terrified Distant Scream Trials

Casting Grotesque Monsters

Luring the Golden Child and The Chosen One

Hiding Lost Arks

Preparing Sankara Stones

Robbing Museums For Artifacts

Installing Anti-scrying Devices

Recruiting Cannibal Tribes

Setting Large Rolling Bolder

Starving Lions

Breeding Bigger Big-Hairy Spiders



Giant spiders? Kai shuddered.

Truthfully, he'd never known what he was really capable of because he'd never pushed his limits. He'd always given in to his innate sense of inferiority. But what if — this time — he didn't give up on himself? The idea was scary as all hell but also exciting. Part of him wanted to have hope in himself. Dare he risk giving into it?

Here he was, somehow unexpectedly ripped from his normal life and thrust into a new one. It was kind of a fresh start. Actually, every single day was a fresh start, and we could choose to change the course of our lives at any time, but this felt like an even more poignant turning point, a crossroads like he hadn't been to in a long time.



Licensing Merchandise to Greedy International Corporations

Studying the Science of Fear

Practicing Inducing Misery and Despair

Researching Darker Darkness

Fostering a Sense of Gloom and Foreboding

Designing New Ways to Get Them to Abandon All Hope for Ye Who Enter

Learning How to Strike Terror into the Heart

Loading Menus…Traps…Minions…Design Features…Weapons of Local Destruction…

Preparing Anti-rogue Security System

Feeding Slimes

Composing Eerie Noises



Kai sighed. He hated being a loser. He hated that he was always looking down on himself, probably more than anyone else looked down on him. He had a guilty suspicion that being a loser had less to do with what he was capable of and more with a negative perspective of himself, that thinking and feeling this way was his own fault, a result of giving into his own insecurities more than the world at large was trying to keep him down. It was a very hard truth to accept, but the longer he allowed the idea to sit in his mind instead of running away from it, the truer it felt.

He was sick of feeling bad about himself. He really didn't want to feel like a loser anymore. Maybe it was time to try harder. Maybe, this time, he wouldn't give up on himself.

He felt a rising sense of defiant anger, of rebellion. What did he have to lose? Some embarrassment if he failed? So what? If people laughed at him for falling on his ass, looked down on him, and mocked him, well then, screw those guys. Anyone who did that to another person was a jerk. Their opinion didn't mean dust.



ANALYZING…

ANALYZING…

LOCKING FEATURES BEHIND LEVELLING REQUIREMENTS



He read that, and his enthusiasm dropped a little, though seeing the rule made sense. No OP start for him though. Sad. His life was not an isekai anime with broken skills. Of course, it wasn't. Typical. He sighed. Then he shook off the bitterness because it wasn't helping.

If Kai did fail and had to look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that he wasn't the next superstar or world record dungeon builder or whatever, then fine. So be it. At least he could be proud of himself for trying his best for once, for pushing his horizons, and that was more important. Not giving up on himself would make him tough. He liked that idea. The more he pondered it, the more he decided that tough was the kind of person he wanted to be. So, from now on, he was going to be the toughest he could possibly be.

He was now in possession of a magical dungeon. His very own. That was amazing. So what if the guy who'd sold it had said that it took hundreds of years to grow one all the way? Just because that was true for others, it didn't mean it was necessarily also true for him, right?

An image of a dungeon appeared on screen. Actually, it was the room outside. Below it, a series of tips scrolled by:



If adventurers are easily conquering your dungeon and stealing all your treasure, try not to suck so much.

Dealing with higher-ranking adventurers? Try deploying even higher-ranked monsters. Duh.

Beware of pooing in the dungeon because it never goes away. Employ slimes to keep passages clean and smelling fresh. Consider installing 'ancient' toilets that magically still work.

Dungeons can be fun, but you can't spend all your time there. Don't forget to go outside and get some sun. And try to make real-life friends, too.

Mecha-gnomes cannot be trusted. AI is evil!



Kai couldn't agree more with that last point. About the AI, anyway. He had no clue was a mecha-gnome was.

He took a deep breath. He decided: screw the odds. Kai was going to bust his ass and try to get this dungeon to level one hundred before he died. Then he was going to meet the gods, find the one who'd put him in this position and punch him in the face, then get that boon. He'd become human again. Get his life back. And this time, he'd live better. He'd get his hands on that god-tier hamburger and enjoy the crap out of it.

If he failed, so be it. He needed to learn to be ok with that. The destination wasn't as important as the journey. He'd read that on a poster at the dentist's office, and he believed it. Or he wanted to. He didn't need to achieve everything. He just needed to prove to himself that he could be a fighter and that he had faith in himself. He could be proud of himself for that. Although, it was probably easier said than done.

The console screen froze. Kai tensed in alarm. A red box appeared over the screen image:



CHECKING…

ERROR

NONSTANDARD MODULE DETECTED



Kai's stomach dropped. "No! Don't tell me he sold me a broken dungeon core! I've just spent the last ten minutes agonizing over a bunch of introspection and stuff. It had better not have been for nothing!" Anxiously, he stared at the screen, willing the bad messages to go away.



NONSTANDARD MODULE IDENTIFIED

DETERMINING COMPATIBILITY

VERIFYING…



Kai gulped. Had his dungeon core been hacked or something?



VERIFYING…

AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED



A yellow happy face appeared on the screen. It winked at Kai, then faded away.

Kai nervously stared at the place where the face had disappeared. "Ok… Weird."

 

[TimBaril]

DUNGEON CORE (POOR) UPGRADE FOUND

UPGRADING…



Had he bought a poor-quality dungeon core? Figured. That sales guy had been sketchy as hell. Kai felt a burst of loathing for the man. Then he took a moment to think about it and realized that the transaction had probably been fair. After all, he was a nobody, a random gremlin in the forest. And he'd paid nothing upfront. His hostility was misplaced.

As the messages continued, Kai's brows rose higher and higher.



UPGRADING TO…COMMON…UNCOMMON…RARE…



The term RARE blinked on the screen for a long time.

"Holy Hanna Barbarian! Rare?" That seemed like a huge level up from poor.



UPGRADING…

UPGRADING TO…EPIC…



Kai's throat went dry. "Holy heavenly grenade."



The screen fuzzed for a split second.

UPGRADING…

UPGRADING TO…LEG…LEG…LEGENDARY

VERIFYING…

INSTALLING

UPGRADE COMPLETE. DUNGEON CORE (LEGENDARY)



Kai took a step back from the console in disbelief. "No way. No freakin' way!" He couldn't stop the huge, toothy grin from taking over his reptilian face. "How the hell?"

Maybe the salesman had made a mistake and handed over the wrong core by accident. Well, the contract was signed, and the core had been planted, so if he came back trying to renege and give him a lesser one, too bad. There was no way that Kai was going to let that happen.

Maybe he was making assumptions, but legendary sounded like it was really rare and impressive. This was the kind of thing that had never happened to him before. He wasn't that lucky. He'd never been born handsome or smart. He'd never won the lottery. In fact, life had always seemed determined to make sure everything about his existence was consistently mediocre while others seemed to catch all the breaks. Honestly, he carried a fair amount of half-suppressed resentment for that. But no more.

Looks like the roll of the dice was finally coming up Kai! He was getting his own OP chance, after all!



DUNGEON CORE (LEGENDARY)

To unlock higher-level features, please grow your dungeon to Floor 10.



Kai shrugged, trying to be patient. "Ok. That seems fair. Gotta prove I'm invested before I can access the crazy stuff. I can do that." To his surprise, he truly believed he would. He could do this!

A digital screen appeared on the stone wall in front of the console like a theatre projection. On the right side was a 3D model of the dungeon so far. On the left was a menu. At the top of the screen was an XP bar for the dungeon and his level: Dungeon Master Lvl 1.

Kai read through the menu aloud, "Structures…themes…traps…minions…creatures…decorations…sounds. Huh. Neat." Unfortunately, very little was available to use in each section. There was nothing in most sections. Theme allowed him to choose whether walls were the current stone blocks or natural stone. "Probably gonna have to level up to get access to more stuff. Or build my own."

Under Structures, he had two door options: a stone block that fell from the ceiling and trapped people inside, and a simple worn stone door with a basic puzzle lock. Under Traps, he had Pit Trap and Bear Trap.

"Pit trap! Classic. Can't use the bear trap; nowhere to hide it on a stone floor. What am I gonna do, bring down a bunch of leaves and hide it under them? Who would step on that?"

Using the console, he put the pit trap right in front of the door. Then he installed the drop slab from the ceiling to cut the entryway off. The little treasure chest that had held fireworks was still in the room. It was empty but would still serve as a lure. He moved it over to the far corner so that anyone could see it from the entryway. The plan was to have someone come in, see the chest, then walk forward and fall into the pit. If they somehow jumped over it, the door would slam closed anyway, trapping them in the room with no way out.

"Simple, but it should work. Hopefully."

Another look at the Structures menu revealed an item for Admin Outdoor Access. He could place a secondary entrance somewhere outside so that he could secretly come and go without going through the dungeon. He placed the interior door on one side of his room. His dungeon was under a small hill with his cave, now his dungeon entrance, on one side. The exterior door popped up in a crevice on the opposite side of the hill in the middle of some bushes.

He surveyed his design with a small measure of pride. This was fun! Almost as cool as that building game with the beavers, Timberbaby or something. Woodborn? He paused in thought. Did they have beavers in this world? If they did, maybe he could recruit some for his dungeon. They were natural engineers.

Finished for now, he used his admin exit to go outside and circled the hill until he returned to the cave entrance. He needed to bring his food into his new lair. It took some effort. He had to empty most of the bread from the basket, hauling it loaf by loaf before dragging the basket all the way around the hill, then down the long tunnel into the Admin Area. It was freaking exhausting. He found his gremlin body was pretty strong and durable for its size, but it was still small. After he'd gotten all the bread down, he ate half a loaf, then returned above for the jerky. He rolled the jerky cask through the forest and tunnel and into his new home. Finally, he took hold of the pie dish with both hands and heaved it step-by-step down into the Admin Area.

He stood in front of the food, breathing hard. "Better eat the pie first." It was a tad cool down here, so the food would last longer than in the heat outside, but it was no fridge. He'd have to eat the pie before it spoiled. That's when he realized that he'd need water or something as well. Unfortunately, he hadn't noticed any streams or lakes nearby so far. Nor did he have a container to hold any. His gremlin form seemed to tolerate dehydration better than a human one, but he was in dear need of a drink.

He checked the console again and found Cistern (small). Had that been there before? He wasn't sure. Placing the cistern on the wall next to his food, it appeared in the Admin Area. It was a clay jug set in the wall with a tap at the bottom. Maybe it soaked up water from the ground or something. He didn't know. But turning the tap allowed a stream of cool, clear water to trickle out. He drank deeply, feeling revived.

Kai returned to the console. He touched a button and another digital window appeared on the wall, this one showed a live view of his dungeon. He could switch views to any angle as if there were floating cameras everywhere. It was very useful. He waited for his first hapless adventurer to stumble by and fall victim to his brilliant design skills. An hour passed.

"No one yet."

He waited some more.

"Still no one coming."

He waited. He ate some pie. It was really good pie. He washed it down with some water.

He quickly checked the screen, just in case someone had appeared in the dungeon during the few seconds he'd taken his attention off of it while eating and drinking. He was as obsessive as a serial author checking their stats after posting a new story online. Or a new influencer posting and then anxiously waiting for their first like. But the dungeon remained quiet.

Night fell. Kai slept.

Morning came.

He excitedly rushed to the console to check for an update. Still nobody. The pit trap resolutely remained empty. His hopes crashed, and he sighed.

Kai realized that just having the dungeon wasn't going to be enough. People weren't just going to show up on their own. This is probably why it took thousands of years to grow a dungeon. His shoulders slumped, and he groaned. "Ugh. If I want to level up faster, I'm going to have to get into marketing, too, aren't I?" That sucked. He just wanted to create and not worry about self-promotion and the whole business side of things! Tsking in annoyance, he made for the exit, then stomped down the tunnel. It was time to give the local area a better perusal. Just his luck, he'd built his dungeon in the middle of freakin' nowhere, and nobody would ever come by, then he'd never be able to level up.

With growing worry, he hoped that he hadn't made a huge mistake just planting the core here instead of taking his time and looking for a better location.

 

[TimBaril]

Kai soon realized that his sense of space had been totally screwed up, thanks to his transformation. What had once seemed close in human terms now seemed much, much further away in gremlin terms. Shorter legs. That was partially why all his exploring in the first couple of days here had seemed so despairing. Now that he had a base to work from, he wasn't as panicked about food and water and felt more confident about exploring and going further.

From the temperature and bright green leaves and grasses around him, he guessed that it was summer. The trees were thick and old, deciduous, maybe elm or oak or something. Kai was no tree expert. They had leaves and not needles. He didn't see any fruits, so they weren't fruit trees or anything. Probably. The canopy was pretty thick, which is why the undergrowth was thicker where branches touched, one tree to another, and was thinner near the aged trunks. As a human, he would have been able to easily march through the mature forest. As a gremlin, it felt like having to push his way through a jungle.

Going in any one direction at random might not lead him anywhere, so he tried to go in a circle, with the dungeon at the center. If he could get an idea about the entire area, he'd feel more confident. He also might not get lost as easily. Losing your magical dungeon because you were lost in the forest would really suck. He needed to push back the mental fog of war and reveal the map.

He was on his third concentric ring, moving progressively outwards from the dungeon, when he finally came across a 'road.' It was nothing more than a dirt path through the forest with traces of wagon ruts. Kai saw a stump and a fallen tree a few centimeters thick. A slightly thicker tree had been cut down further down the road on the other side. It looked like someone came along once in a while and kept the forest from encroaching too far, keeping the route open. That said, there were tufts of grass and weeds all throughout the road, so it obviously wasn't travelled much.

Movement far to Kai's right caught his attention. Instinctively, he crouched lower and faded back behind the cover of some bushes.

A human man in filthy, medieval peasant clothes was carelessly ambling along the road in Kai's direction. He had shaggy brown hair, a big basket on his back with a couple of dead branches sticking out, and he wore grass sandals on his feet. He took a swig from a silver flask in his hand, his eyes listlessly roaming the sides of the road.

Kai felt a thrill of excitement. His first human! Well, aside from the salesman. What were people in this world like? Kai hid himself in the bushes and eavesdropped on the approaching man. Maybe he'd get a chance to introduce himself.

The man sauntered closer and closer. He mumbled to himself, "Skanky bitch of a wife. Thinking of leaving me. Me! For what? How did I deserve that? Scorning me like I'm no good. As if that fat cow is better than me." His tone turned feminine, and he mocked, "'You have a gambling problem.' As if. Just a run of bad luck. What does she know? She was never smart enough to understand things. Gamblin's a patient man's game. Gotta wait. Then, when the cards are right, that's when you strike!" He smacked his hands together. The movement caused some of his alcohol to spill from the flask. "Oops!" He hastily licked the droplets from the side and neck of the flask lest they go to waste.

Kai…was not impressed.

"She'll regret it when I've hit it rich. I'll drop her fat ass and get me a younger, prettier model. Hell yeah. And those damned kids! Looking down on me. How dare they? I'm their father! Ungrateful little shits. They can go live with their bitch of a mother after I drop her. If they don't have the good sense to appreciate all their father has done for them, then good riddance. Bunch of money-sucking piglets is all they are anyway. Her too." He spotted a fallen branch next to the road. Picking it up, he held it in his hand and stared at it in silence for a long minute. Finally, he scowled. "Bloody wood collecting. I can't believe I have to stoop to this to survive. Picking up deadwood for coppers. Can't even cut down a tree for firewood like a normal person because 'you need a license'. Stuck-up government pricks. Why should anyone need a license to cut down trees? They're everywhere!" In a fit of rage, he lashed out with the branch, striking the nearest tree over and over. But the dead stick quickly snapped and fell to the ground. Not exactly a prime physical specimen, the man almost immediately tired out and stood there, smaller stick in hand, panting. In disgust, he whipped the stick at the tree. It bounced back and hit him in the chest. "Ow!"

To level up the dungeon, Kai was pretty sure that he needed to bring people into the dungeon to challenge it. He'd lost all interest in trying to talk to this guy. But how to tempt the guy into going into the dungeon? Kai had no money, so he couldn't wave that in the desperately poor man's face and get him to chase after him. He could try talking. 'Say hey, my good man. Brand new dungeon over there, don't ya know? Got a treasure chest an' everything. Come on; I'll show ya." Kai was a gremlin. He doubted the man would listen to a little green man.

A memory bubbled up from Kai's past, something from TV. A frog that could sing and dance. Loony Tunes? He recalled a man dreaming of getting rich from the frog's talent. Kai squinted his eyes in thought. Could something like that work here?

The man had given up his drunken anger and was now resignedly picking up the stick he'd broken and putting it over his shoulder and into his basket.

Kai took a deep breath. He'd never thought of himself as much of an actor, but… Pretending like he didn't know the man was there, he started singing and dancing, channelling his best Michael Jackson, though he couldn't really remember most of the words, "As he came into the window, it was the sound of a crescendo. He came into her apartment, something bloodstains in her apartment. Something something table. Something she was disabled. She ran into Max Headroom. She was struck down. It's her doom." He raised his voice, belting out the chorus, "Annie, are you ok? Are you ok? Annie, are you ok?" Then, as if he was just noticing the human man now, he froze in the middle of the moonwalk he was doing. Very slowly, he looked up.

The man stared down at Kai in shock, jaw dropped, mouth hanging wide open.

Very deliberately and acting embarrassed, he was a little because he was a very bad singer and couldn't dance to save his life. Kai straightened, brushed himself off, and then cleared his throat. "Ahem. Ah, hello."

The man's jaw slowly rose until his teeth clicked. "What the tarnation are you?"

"A gremlin."

"You speak?"

"Yes…?"

"I've never seen a talking monster before."

Kai nodded and acted knowing. "Very likely. I understand it's a rare thing. That's why my former master made so much money off me."

The man blinked. "Master? How he made money?"

Kai tried to play innocent and trusting. "Yes. When my former master discovered me, he was just as surprised as you are. He convinced me to come with him. He fed and protected me, and in return, I performed for audiences. We travelled in his wagon all over, performing in many different towns. We were very successful. My master collected much money. He used to sit up late into the night counting it, counting how many gold he could turn all those coppers and silvers into." Kai forced a laugh as if the memory were amusing.

"G-gold, you say." The man licked his lips. He took a step closer.

Kai nodded. "It was a good life — for a while. We became quite famous, so I'm told. My master became very rich. But then he became cruel, so I ran away." Kai acted forlorn.

"Yes… A shame…" You could see the calculations going on in the man's eyes. It probably took a bit to cut through the alcoholic haze in his brain, but slowly, slowly, he reached a conclusion: if the singing gremlin had made one man rich, why, it could make this man rich too! His eyes widened with elation. Then they intently focused on Kai. The man slid his flask into a pocket. He took a step toward Kai.

Kai took a step back.

Both paused and stared into each other's eyes.

The man took two steps forward.

At the same time, Kai took two steps back.

As Kai's legs were a fraction the length of the human's, this was not going in Kai's favour.

The man moved.

Kai spun and ran.

The man cackled with glee as he gave chase. He called out, "Come here, you little gold mine! I'll treat you well. I swear!"

Kai didn't have enough air in his lungs to banter. The man was closing fast. Kai pumped his legs as fast as they would go, his toe claws digging into grass and dirt. He sprinted across bare spots and wove around trees. It was all he could do to stay ahead of the human.

The man chugged along, soon breathing just as hard as Kai, for he seemed quite out of shape. So focused was he on his target that he didn't notice a low branch hanging from a particular tree. The wood collector ran right into it with his forehead. His feet went out from under him, and he fell onto his back, his basket cracking and sticks tumbling out.

Kai couldn't help but point back at the man even as he continued to run. "Ha-ha!" Then he tripped over a rock and face-planted into a patch of dirt. Grass poked him in the eye, and dirt got between his many teeth. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, dazed and in pain. He rubbed his hurt eye, forgot he had claws, and nearly took his own eye out. With a jolt, fingers wrapped around his body, and he was jerked up into the air.

The man maliciously grinned down at him, a small gash now on his injured forehead. Triumphantly, he crowed, "Got you!"

Kai spit gritty mud into his eyes.

The man shouted in pain and dropped Kai while trying to wipe the stinging dirt out of his eyes.

Kai ran. He heard the man soon follow, footsteps pounding, breath wheezing. Luckily, Kai was headed in the right direction. Sort of. Spotting familiar terrain, he broke hard left behind a thick tree trunk, gaining distance. Then it was a clear sprint toward the cave. He dashed inside into the darkness.

Running down the short tunnel, he saw the stone floor ahead and just then recalled the pit trap. "Whoa!" He put on the brakes and slid forward, coming to a stop right at the edge of the trap. It might look like a regular stone floor now, but the moment he stepped on it, the floor would open, and he'd plunge into the open pit below, unable to climb out again. Luckily, that didn't happen. Dying to his own trap would have been super stupid. Very carefully, he slid along the very narrow gap between the trap and the wall. His size came in handy this time. There was just enough space to work his way around the pit trap. Then he was free and on the other side of it.

The wood collector came jogging up, his basket of sticks gone, fresh dirt on his knees. The gash on his forehead had opened, and a trickle of blood had come out. He looked exhausted. But the moment he saw Kai, his greedy eyes lit up. "Got you!" He lunged forward.

The trap door fell open. The man fell with a short cry of surprise. His body made a soft thump when it landed.

Kai let out a long breath. He was safe. It had worked. He smiled.

"Hello?"

Kai's grin froze.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

Kai's smile faded away. The man wasn't dead.

"I seem to have fallen in a hole. Please help me."

Kai eyed the pit. This was…an unexpected development. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He looked around as if he could spot answers lying around in the small room. Of course, there weren't any.

"I…I think I've broken something. I think I broke my leg. Yes. There's something white poking out of the skin." A scream of pain. "Yes. Yes, it's the bone, and it's sticking out of my leg."

Kai swallowed. He gingerly edged away from the pit and toward the Admin Area door.

"Hello? Are you still there? Mr Gremlin? Can you help me? Do you have a rope? Can you call a doctor?"

The secret door opened, and Kai backed through it. As soon as he was safely in the Admin Area, the door shut, cutting off the horrible sounds from outside.

"Hello? Mr Gremlin?"

Kai whirled. It took him a second, but he realized the sound was coming from the console. The video screen on the wall showed the room outside. Luckily, it didn't show down into the pit.

"I'm having trouble breathing. My ribs are moving much more than usual. When I put my fingers on them, I can play them like a piano. Ow. Ow. Ow. I think they're all broken." A wet cough. "Uh…I think they've punctured a lung."

Kai slid over to the console. He brought up the design menu: Traps. He punched a button. A bear trap fell into the pit trap.

A horrible scream tore through the air. It dwindled, then died out. Silence reigned.

Kai sighed in relief.

"Hello? Are you there?"

Kai flinched in surprise.

"I think a bear trap fell on me. But it's ok. It only took my arm off. Although, I'm losing a lot of blood now. I don't think I have much time. Do you have a healing potion by chance?"

Kai stabbed the button on the console. A second bear trap fell into the pit. More screaming. Then a third trap fell. He paused. Still screaming. So he hit the button several more times until the pit was entirely full of bear traps, and the screaming ended.

He waited. And waited.

A chime sounded in his head. The text box appeared in his vision.

LEVEL UP!

Dungeon Master

Level 2!

Kai excitedly pumped his fist. "Yes!"

 

[TimBaril]

Kai probably should have felt worse about the guy dying in the trap. He hadn't really put it together in his head that this kind of thing was going to happen, so this was a bit unexpected, a 'duh' moment of realization. Trouble was, he didn't really feel conflicted. The guy had been a real jerk. The world was probably better off now.

Hitting Level 2 caused the dungeon to expand. On the 3D model in the system, a blank plane opened up, showing that space for a new floor had been added. In the menu, new options appeared. There were two types of stairs: stone block and natural rock. He had the option to place two more rooms on the second level, and he could connect them with hallways, which could be as short or as long as he wanted. Or he could combine the two rooms into one big one.

It was the first time he'd really had to start thinking about planning his dungeon layout. He played around with the designer for a few minutes. He settled on sticking with stone block style for now. He placed the stairs to the left of the main entrance, opposite the secret door to the Admin Area. He used a spiral style rather than straight stairs. The steps ended in the middle of the second-floor hallway. Well, not quite the middle. Kai made the right hallway a bit longer than the left. He thought the slight visual difference might throw people off when trying to choose which way to go. Unnerve them because something was wrong, but they couldn't readily tell what. He was probably over-thinking it.

He put one square room at the end of each hall. Then he thought about what traps to use and where to put them. Unfortunately, he still only had pit and bear traps. He put a pit trap in each hall but left the rooms empty. He wasn't sure what to do with them yet. He looked at the bear traps on the screen and really wanted to use one somewhere. He slid one around the screen, but it seemed stupid to put a bear trap in the middle of a room or hallway; it was just too obvious.

He decided to try putting one at the bottom of the stairs. Of course, it was very easy to see. He tapped a claw on the screen in thought. "How to hide it…?" The natural first thought was to put dead leaves over it. But they were underground, not in the forest. Screw it. Maybe he could set it up so that it looked like leaves had blown in through the door.

The design system didn't allow for him to make these kinds of changes with magic, so he'd have to do it by hand. Unfortunately, walking around the dungeon would put him at risk of activating his own traps. He didn't want to die. Exploring the console menu, he found a switch that would tell the traps not to activate on him. There was another switch to prevent traps from targeting official minions and creatures. He clapped his hands, pleased. "Awesome. This will make things much easier."

Kai went out into the forest and started hauling armfuls of dirt and leaves, dead grass, and even a few twigs. He dumped most of it in the cave entrance, spreading it out and making it look like it had accumulated here over time. He dumped more in the first-floor room, mostly in the corners and edges. He dusted the chest to make it look like it hadn't been opened in forever. He trickled dried leaves and grass down the stairs, but not too much. Then he piled a bunch of dirt and leaves around the bear trap that sat below the bottom step of the stairs. Artfully (in his mind), he tried to make it look authentic, like it had all piled up naturally.

Tired, he decided to take a break. He went back outside the dungeon, climbed the hill the cave was in, and leaned his back against it where he could relax and enjoy the sunny day. Taking a moment to just sit and be with himself, things started to catch up to him.

The last few days had happened kind of fast, at least on an emotional level. He'd been ripped from the life he'd known and cast into a new place, evidently, someplace with magic or some version of reality he'd only imagined until now. He'd spent two confused and scary days wandering around, increasingly hungry and thirsty, with no idea of what had happened or what he should do. Only random luck had led him to a modicum of shelter. Then, some stranger shows up out of nowhere and sells him a dungeon.

He closed his eyes, unable to believe this was all seriously happening. With a bit of rare introspection, he wanted to figure out how he felt about it. So he just sat and…tried to make sense of his feelings. He did that for a few minutes. He lay with his back on the grassy hill, feeling the sun's warmth on his skin and the strands of grass on his palms. The forest was quiet. There was a slight breeze. It was very peaceful. It got him wondering about when the last time was that he'd done something like this. Years ago, maybe? He darkly chuckled. How much had human life changed in the modern era that something as sitting on the grass in the sun was no longer a commonplace activity?

No video games. No TV. No phone and no internet. Just fresh air and quiet. It was…really nice.

While it was relaxing and restful, however, nothing about his feelings really became clear. Maybe he was still in shock? Or…was he really not all that upset to have left his life behind? Shouldn't he be more sad? He was pissed about being brought here without his consent. And for not getting to enjoy that hamburger he'd been looking forward to for so long. But achieving shelter, food, and water had eroded most of his immediate panic about survival. More than anything, he was upset at being turned into a gremlin. It was kind of neat, but he really wanted to go back to being human. He wanted his old body back.

That's what he needed: a goal. Something more concrete than endlessly growing his dungeon and maybe meeting some gods someday. He needed tangible things he could work towards, like how he'd gotten food and water and felt a lot better.

He basically had to start his life all over here, so this time, he should try to build the life he wanted and find out what made him happy. Make some genuine, inner-circle friends. Find a partner, someone he could love without holding back, someone who actually liked him for who he was. He wasn't entirely sure how to go about those things, but being aware of them as goals would probably be a start. He wondered what would happen if he came across a gremlin woman now that he was a gremlin too. Would he think she was hot?

He shook himself and got out of his mental space. Too freakin' weird to contemplate. Time to get back to work. Maybe if he explored the area more, he could find something to put in those two new rooms. Perhaps he could make his own traps.

He once more went in a big circle around the dungeon, pushing the limits of what he'd already seen. The entire region seemed to be old deciduous forest. There were birds and insects but other than that owl bear who'd come by earlier, he saw little sign of large creatures. As he drew nearer the road, he instinctively gravitated toward it.

He needed to find more people to enter the dungeon in order to grow it. The road seemed like the best place to do that. So he approached it with caution. One thing about being a gremlin, he had great big ears that were very good at hearing. It made up for the fact that his eyes weren't as good out in the bright sun as compared to the dim light of the dungeon. That's how he was fairly certain that nobody was nearby along the road.

It was ironic, then, that it wasn't his ears but his eyes that led him to his next discovery. While navigating his way along the edge of the road, his attention was drawn to a tiny movement in the grass in the shade of a nearby oak tree. At first, he assumed it was a bird. But when he stared at the spot, something shiny moved again. He stalked toward it, but nothing flew away. Drawing near, he squatted down for a better look.

The creature was only the size of his fist. It was a shiny, clear blob, like a drop of water beaded on a glass. It leaned in one direction, sliding forward like a slug and at about the same very slow speed.

Kai's mouth opened in happy amazement. "No way. A slime!" He watched, fascinated.

The slime oozed over a dead leaf and paused. Very, very slowly, the leaf disintegrated as if eaten away by the world's slowest acid.

Excited, Kai quickly searched the forest floor in all directions until he discovered a small black beetle. Rushed back to the slime, he put the beetle helplessly on its back next to the slime. However, after the leaf had been completely eaten, the slime continued on, ignoring the flailing legs of the beetle only a hair away. Did it not consume living things? Kai crushed the beetle's head with a swift pinch, feeling a pang of guilt, then offered the dead insect to the slime. It's not like he was killing insects for fun, this was the cycle of life.

This time, the slime seemed to turn at the offering. It oozed forward and touched the black body. Very slowly, the slime accepted the offering, and the tiny corpse was gradually drawn into the clear body. The slime rested there, digesting. Giggling madly, Kai watched in wonder.

He sat there for minutes, then an hour. "This is going to take a while, huh?" He watched for another hour before finally noticing that the beetle was finally growing a little rough around the edges as it disintegrated. "This is so cool! I gotta take you back to the dungeon. What proper dungeon doesn't have a slime?"

Very, very gently, he scooped the slime up in one hand and held it against his body so he wouldn't drop it. On the way back to the dungeon, with his other hand, he snatched up some dead leaves and grass that he hoped would feed the slime. Back in the dungeon, he went straight to the chest on the first floor. Opening up the empty box, he tossed in the dead vegetation. Then he lowered the slime and allowed it to rest on the bottom of the chest.

"I have a pet! I shall name you…Slimy!" He watched the slime sit there and continue digesting the beetle for another hour. Very little changed. Evidently, slimes worked slowly. Or maybe it was because this was a baby slime. He was no expert on slimes…yet.

He finally decided to close the chest to make sure the slime stayed. Then he returned to the Admin Area. At the console, he found the slime listed in the Creatures menu but with an Unaffiliated tag and grayed out. He was able to drag the slime's name into the official creatures section. The icon coloured and gave him the option of changing the name, which he did. A status screen listed the slime as happy and healthy. Kai swore he'd do everything he could to keep things that way. This was the dungeon's first resident, outside of himself. He would take that responsibility very seriously.

For two days, Kai kept a close watch on the cute little slime. It did very little and took most of that time to finish off the beetle. Kai also made a second discovery: corpses stink. Down at the bottom of the first pit trap, the body was beginning to rot. Kai wrinkled his tiny nose in disgust. "Nasty. That's no good. It totally gives away the pit's location. The smell will probably scare people off."

There was an obvious solution: Slimy!

Kai had no way of lowering Slimy into the pit. He couldn't get down there on his own without falling, and then he would have no way out. He didn't want to just drop the slime. Maybe it would be fine, but the tiny creature seemed very fragile. He didn't want to risk it. Returning to the console, he excitedly discovered that he could move Slimy around from there. So he moved the slime from the chest to the bottom of the pit trap.

Slimy immediately immersed itself in the puddle of gross fluids. Its status changed from happy to ecstatic. Kai felt pretty pleased with that. He now had an adorable little corpse eater.

He also found out that he could now loot the corpse. He could take the shirt, pants, underwear, sandals, and flask (whisky). Having no use for any of it, he left it in inventory. Especially when he found out that putting things in inventory didn't clean them, so the clothing remained drenched in blood and bodily fluids in the early phase of decomposition. Sick.

He almost dismissed the items from his mind until he recalled that he was still naked. Obviously, human pants weren't going to fit. Taking the pants out of inventory, he used his claws to cut off a clean section of one leg, just a rectangle. He tied it around his waist like a bath towel. Instant clothing! He threw the rest of the pants back into storage.

The only thing better than having a slime in his dungeon would be having more slimes! Kai scoured the nearby forest, meticulously hunting through every bush and every patch of grass in search of more slimes. It wasn't until he explored far enough from the dungeon and came across a tiny pond that he found another one.

---

We now have Kai emojis!
What do you think?

 

[TimBaril]

This slime sat in the water, surrounded by decaying plant matter and bugs. It was much larger than Slimy and tinted a scummy brownish-green. The pond probably offered up a lot of great nutrition. It seemed that slimes were scavengers, consumers of the dead.

Kai was unable to carry the new slime. It was slippery and had no real shape, so it shot from his hands when he tried to pick it up. He had to return to the dungeon and carry the chest all the way to the pond. There, he managed to push the slime into the chest, along with some pond water and decaying stuff and all the tiny organisms living there. That made the chest, which was large enough to be a bathtub to Kai, very heavy. It took two full days of back-breaking work to drag the chest all the way back to the dungeon.

Sore everywhere, Kai left the chest in the first room and went to the Admin console. As before, he used the system to place the second slime, which he named Pondscum, into the pit to help Slimy eat the wood collector's corpse. Slimy was a great little guy, but he was small and couldn't eat very fast. Even days after he'd started down there, the place smelled worse than ever from all the decaying flesh waiting to be digested. Hopefully, Pondscum would help with that, or the process would take months.

Kai made Pondscum another official creature of the dungeon. He also set both creatures to passive so they wouldn't attack each other or any other official dungeon resident. He didn't know if slimes got along or were territorial, so this seemed safest.

Maybe he'd even get lucky, and they'd make lots of little baby slimes!

After all that hard work, Kai was sore and tired. He ate his fill of bread and jerky and guzzled some water. Then he slept. It hurt so much to move the next morning that he was strongly tempted to be lazy and just stay in bed all day, his bed being a mat of grass in the corner of the Admin Area. But he knew that was the wrong thing to do.

He groaned aloud, "Can't lay around all day. If I'm going to hit level one hundred before I die, I need to push myself. Be tough!" That was his new mantra. Wincing, he levered himself out of bed and got to breakfast. He checked on the status of both slimes, glad to see that both were ecstatic now. Poking his head out the Admin door, he found that the place still reeked. It was going to be a while for that corpse to get cleaned up.

Out in the forest again, Kai wandered with less zeal than he'd had earlier. He was just too tired to stay focused. It was interesting to note that he was becoming familiar with the locale and comfortable in this area. He had begun to recognize the nearby trees and rocks. The outline of the hill over the dungeon and the cave entrance felt a bit like home in a weird way. He knew which direction the road was and where that pond lay.

He shook his head. Who could have ever imagined that this would be his life and this place his home? He looked at his clawed hands and saw his clawed feet as he walked through the forest underbrush. He was a gremlin. An actual monster. It would have been a neat experience for a day, but he wished he had his human body back.

Passing under the dappled shade of a particularly tall oak, he looked around without really looking, lost in thought. He pictured a few friends from back home. He'd probably never see them again. Honestly, or maybe he was just being negative, but he doubted anyone would lose sleep over his disappearance. People nowadays called each other friends but weren't blood brothers or anything. You hung out and did stuff together sometimes, laughed and did stupid things, maybe played sports or video games or whatever. But it's not like he was that close to any of the guys. They didn't hug or talk about important things and share stuff, like about their feelings or whatever. That wasn't 'manly'. They didn't see each other all that often. They only got together maybe once a month.

And it was all guys that he hung with. If he stopped to think about it, none of his female friends were friends on their own. They were girlfriends of a guy friend or coworkers. Actually, none of his coworkers were really friends, just friendly. He couldn't imagine ever hanging out with any of the women he knew unless it was in a group. Well, they did say that men and women couldn't be friends because lust or romance inevitably screwed things up. Maybe they were right. Or maybe Kai wasn't very good at being friends. Well, he was a loser.

No. He wasn't going to think that way anymore. He forced the ugly thought away.

Kai stepped out from under the tree, still rambling across the forest, now entering an open section with the clear blue sky above. A shadow flickered around him but he paid it no mind. The forest was alive, leaves and grass swishing whenever a light breeze came along. Birds and insects fluttered by. It was nice. Peaceful.

More than anyone, he did miss his mom. She was his only real family. He didn't know any of his cousins or anything. His sister didn't seem to want anything to do with him, though she'd never said why, just shown zero interest in being family with him after she'd become a teenager, especially after getting married and having kids. Did she see her brother as a burden? Think she didn't need family? Or secretly hate him for some reason? He didn't know, and because of the distance she'd created, he wouldn't really miss her. But Kai was going to miss his mom. He felt really crappy that she probably thought he was dead right now. He cursed whatever entity had done this to him and, by extension, caused his mother pain. He'd been making that curse a lot.

You know what he also missed, but didn't really miss? His phone. Habitually, he kept reaching for it, but it was never there. He felt like he was going through withdrawal. That made him resent the phone, and the tech companies behind it. If the little piece of tech was going to do this too him, he was probably better off without it. Being able to contact people anywhere, anytime, was convenient, but no longer twitching with need every time an alert chimed, no more doom scrolling on social media, no more addictive 'games' that were little more than dopamine delivery vehicles to keep you hooked to your device. With all this walking and doing things with his hands, he felt like he was actually participating in his own life in a way he couldn't remember doing in a long time.

Some sixth sense caused a tingle to race up the back of Kai's neck. Gremlin reflexes kicked in, and he instinctively threw himself to the side in fright, rolling through the grass.

Something huge slammed into the ground next to him. Dirt and grass exploded outwards, peppering him like shrapnel.

Kai scrambled up, already running before his feet were under him, absolutely filled with terror. Movement came at him, and he ducked. A huge tail with a spiked ball at the end flew at his face, then over him. The spikes barely missed his green skin. Kai raced forward, clawing his way through grass as tall as he was as something heavy pounded after him, hissing and crashing through the vegetation behind. Kai darted to his right like prey trying to throw off a predator. He realized that he was exactly that: prey. A frightened glance over his shoulder confirmed it.

A wyvern's golden eyes were dead set on him. The beast was cousin to dragons. Its shorter snout was heavier, shorter, and more square, but it was just as filled with huge teeth and a long, slathering, forked tongue. The wyvern propelled itself forward with thick, avian legs and three-fingered talons on each wing since it lacked arms. The far larger creature was gaining fast!

Kai ducked under a low-hanging oak branch, putting the tree between him and the wyvern. The wyvern was forced to go around, gaining Kai precious seconds. He made for the next closest tree. The only chance he had was to keep them between him and the vast creature intent on eating him. Like a scared rabbit, he dodged and darted in random directions as he made a beeline for the only safe place around: his home.

The wyvern was not a ground-dwelling creature. It had doubtless hoped to have nailed its prey in the initial drop from the sky. Chasing Kai through the forest wasn't ideal, but it wasn't giving up. Because of its vast size and Kai's smallness, it kept up, talons slashing and mouth snapping, always hot on Kai's heels.

Kai had never been so scared in his life. He ran with everything he had. There was no thought of bodily pain or tiredness; adrenalin flooded his body in a desperate attempt to fuel his escape. He saw the hill in front of him and knew the cave would be at the bottom. He sobbed with relief, tears of terror flowing as he ran. He didn't want to die. Darn this world! Darn big-ass wyverns! Darn everyone! He screamed, "Ahhh!"

The wyvern gathered itself and pounced, launching itself into the air above Kai. It let out a triumphant hiss.

Kai slammed on the brakes, letting the wyvern fly by, then reversed direction back the other way. But only for a few paces. Then he turned left around a tree and bolted for the hill again.

He saw the cave!

The wyvern growled, frustrated that it had missed yet again. Huge taloned feet raked deep grooves in the forest floor as it tried to correct course.

Kai ran and ran straight for the cave. He was getting closer. But the wyvern was right on his ass.

The wyvern screeched so loud it seemed to shake the whole forest. Then it launched itself again, wings outstretched, covering Kai in shadows and doom.

 

[TimBaril]

Kai sprinted into the cave.

The wyvern slammed into the entrance. While its body was hung up on the hill, its legs shot through the cave entrance. Great big talons nearly caught Kai but kicked him forward instead.

Kai went rolling all the way down the short tunnel. He came to a stop in the doorway to the dungeon. Sitting up with his head spinning, he fearfully looked up.

The wyvern poked its head and long neck into the cave tunnel. Furiously, it clawed away at the entrance, doing heaps of damage to the opening and enlarging it. But it couldn't go very far.

Kai shakily backed away into the first-floor room, unable to take his eyes off the wyvern. When the beast shrieked, Kai clapped his hands over his ears in vain and fell to his knees. Terrified, he fled into the Admin Area. When the secret door slammed shut, sealing him away in safety, he collapsed against the wall, chest heaving and tears streaming down his cheeks.

The wyvern angrily tried to worm its way down the tunnel, but the space was simply too narrow. Having lost sight of its prey and gaining no ground, the wyvern eventually backed off. With a flap of its leathery wings, it seemed to take off.

Kai couldn't move. He'd never felt like this in his life. No bullying, no near-crash on his bike or in a car, no experience he'd ever had had prepared him for what it was like to have a monster a hundred times his size come after him with raw fury, intent on killing and eating him. He could only sit there and tremble, half-ashamed of his tears and weakness. He could practically feel the PTSD settling in and making itself at home.

For three days, he stayed in the Admin room, too scared to leave. He ate, he drank, he warily took a dump in the pit trap, his eyes on the cave entrance the whole time, before dashing back into the safety of the Admin Area. There was no way he was going out into the forest to do his business anymore. Screw that.

By the morning of his fourth day since the attack, he'd calmed down enough to think rationally again. He sat on his grass bed with his arms crossed over his knees and muttered to himself, "Can't stay here forever. Can't let the fear win." If he never left the dungeon, he wouldn't be able to proactively help it grow. His fear of the outdoors would probably deepen until it became permanent. The only way to stop being scared was to challenge his fear. Easier said than done, but he had to try. That was his thing now. No more giving up.

Gingerly, he moved down the back tunnel. Staying well hidden just inside the admin exit, he looked in all directions, searching the forest for signs of life.

All was quiet. Wind rustled leaves in the trees. The sun blazed down. He heard a bird. He saw a couple of insects buzzing by.

It was highly unlikely that a huge monster like the wyvern would still be around. Kai had probably been nothing more than a prey of opportunity. He would have been a bite-size snack at best, not a full meal. The wyvern had likely flown onwards to find something it could really sink its teeth into, like a cow or ten. Still, as Kai eased out of the tunnel, he did so while looking in all directions, just in case.

He returned to exploring. This time, he made sure not to lose himself in thought. He was potential prey; he needed to think as prey. That meant a constant state of awareness. It also meant keeping an eye on the sky in case something came from that direction as well. He needed to become accustomed to thinking in three dimensions. He stuck close to trees and under branches, avoiding clearings and open ground as much as possible. After a few hours, he began to relax. Coming outdoors again had been a good thing, what someone tough would do.

This time, Kai chose to go in a different direction and avoid the road. He had to be careful he didn't spend all his time going in that direction, or he might miss something useful elsewhere. The forest changed, the trees becoming thinner and more varied in type. The underbrush thickened with a lot more bushes and grass. That made it harder to traverse.

His big ears picked up a faint sound. Coming to a halt, he listened. Was that whispering? Trying not to make any more sounds than necessary, he made for the nearest tree, hoping to climb it and get a better look around. One couldn't see much at his height. That's when Kai made a pleasant discovery: all these claws on his hands and feet made climbing easy! He went up the trunk of a birch-type tree with almost as much ease as climbing a ladder. It was awesome! He grinned to himself.

He rose to a height of about three meters. It felt a hell of a lot higher and scarier than it would have as a human, but his claws gave him a firm hold, and he fought through his fear of the height. Standing on a thick branch, he peered around at the nearby forest.

His gremlin hearing helped him identify the direction of the whispers. He saw a pair of teenage human boys crouched behind a fallen tree and some bushes. The younger one held a very simple bow made of light wood. On his knees, he was taking aim while the older boy gently nudged him and whispered what was probably advice in the other's ear.

Their target was a deer not too far away, grazing on a bush. From the lack of horns, it might have been female or young. The animal's fur was mottled brown and tan with white spots, the belly wine-red. It hadn't noticed anything amiss.

The younger boy drew back on the string, arrow knocked and ready to fly.

From another direction entirely, a twang sounded. An arrow sailed through the forest in a blink and buried itself in the deer's side, right in the belly.

The deer bleated in pain. It staggered sideways in surprise, badly hurt, but not in a way that would soon kill it. Kai knew enough about hunting to know that it was a really bad shot. You were supposed to kill the animal on the first shot if possible. Or at least wound it so badly that you could run up and put it out of its misery. A shot like this wouldn't even cripple the deer. It could take days to die, maybe longer, and it would be in growing pain the whole time. That was cruel.

The older boy urged the younger to fire as the deer tried to escape.

The younger boy seemed uncertain for a moment, then breathed deep and aimed. His arrow flew true. It punctured the deer in the throat. The animal gasped and fell.

The two teens ran for the deer, crashing through the woods. Another figure did the same from another direction: the other archer. The three met over the dying deer.

The newcomer was a heavset man, older and grizzled. His hair was streaked with gray, his clothing dyed brown and green to blend into the forest. He carried a bow as well and had a hatchet and knife on his belt. He snarled at the teens, "That's my kill! Get lost!"

The older boy ignored the man as he bent down and slid his own knife into the deer's heart, ending its suffering.

The younger boy defiantly spoke up with the kind of bravery that kids have when they have yet to understand just how dangerous other people can be, "No, it's not! We were here before you."

"I shot first!"

"Your shot was terrible! My shot would have killed it."

The hunter roared, "That don't matter!"

The older boy wiped his knife off and sheathed it. He held up a hand. "It's just bad luck we were both hunting it at the same time. Let's just split the bag. That's fair."

The hunter twitched. "Share? It's my kill! I ain't sharin' with you twits."

The younger boy protested, "But we need that meat! Our family is starving!" From how reedy thin the two boys were, that seemed true. The hunter was obviously very well fed.

"I don't give two shits about your family, brat. I shot this here deer. It's my kill." He dropped a hand to his hatchet. His voice dropped and became deliberately threatening, "You git gone. Now."

The younger boy was too innocent to realize an adult might hurt him. He stepped forward, his chest out. "No! This is our deer!" The hunter's fist backhanded him in the face so hard that the boy's head snapped around. His legs turned to jelly, and he fell to the ground.

The older boy stepped forward with hands bunched into fists. At least he hadn't been stupid enough to draw his knife. "Hey! Don't you dare!"

The hunter threw his bow in the boy's face, then followed it up with a very solid punch. To his credit, the boy took the hit without falling, only stumbling back a step. But then a second punch landed, and a third. The boy's legs turned to jelly; he fell.

The hunter rained punches and kicks down on both teens. He beat them bloody. Neither was able to resist or escape, let alone fight back. Finally, with one last boot to the older boy's rear, he pointed into the distance. "Get yourselves gone afore I do something you'll both regret. Permanent like. Go!"

The two boys weakly picked themselves up. The older one grabbed their bow; then the two leaned on each other as they hobbled away.

The scowling hunter watched them go until they were well away before kneeling down next to the dead dear.

Kai hadn't moved during the beating. There was nothing he could have done to help. But now the conflict was resolved. Kai could get back to work: finding people to lead to his dungeon. He climbed down the tree to the forest floor and then quietly followed the boys.

He caught up to them soon enough because they weren't moving very fast, both hurt and morose. He waited until they were safely out of earshot of the hunter before circling in front of them and allowing them to see him. "Hey there."

Both boys froze in their tracks. Eyes wide, they stared at him in shock like they were seeing a monster. From their perspective, maybe they were.

Kai hurt, seeing that reaction. This was his new reality; he was no longer human. He should have been thrilled to finally connect with others. But he couldn't be one of his own people anymore. Everyone would always look at him like a freak or something to stab with a sword. It stung, and the sudden emotion made his eyes burn. He hastily waved a hand, like 'get on with it', pretending he was fine. "Yes, yes. A talking monster. I know. Gremlin. Look, I saw everything. With the hunter."

The older boy's expression turned suspicious. "What do you want?"

Kai looked back and forth between the two. "Are you guys strong enough to haul that deer home on your own? Like, fast, if you need to?"

The boys looked at each other. The older one shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. I think so."

"Great. You two go that way. Circle around the hunter, but stay out of sight and make sure he doesn't hear you. I'm going to draw him off in that direction." Kai pointed in the direction of the dungeon. "When he's well away, you two run in and get that deer. Haul it off quick as you can in case he comes back."

The younger boy found his courage. "Why? You want some of our kill?"

Kai grinned. "Nah. I want that hunter." It was probably the really wide smile full of sharp teeth that caused both boys to pale slightly. He waved them in the direction he wanted them to go, then took off back toward the hunter. A couple of moments later, he heard the boys following his instructions. He was pleased but also a tad anxious. He hoped he'd be successful in leading that hunter away. If he wasn't, and the rough man returned to find the boys dragging that deer off, he'd likely kill both.

Kai gave the boys some time to get into position. Then he snuck as close as he dared to the hunter. Along the way, he picked up a couple of small stones. Hiding behind a patch of grass, he could just see the hunter in the distance, working over the deer. Kai pulled his arm back and then threw as hard as he could.

Being a gremlin hadn't improved his general lack of athletic ability. The stone missed and hit the ground at least a meter away.

The hunter's attention snapped in that direction. He looked around. Seeing nothing, he returned to his task.

Kai tossed another stone. This one hit the hunter in the lower back. Kai nearly cheered himself for it.

The hunter abruptly stood. He looked around the ground but seemed to find nothing. His gaze roamed the surrounding forest. He frowned. Seeing nothing, he turned back to his work, but now with his movements sharper.

Kai threw another stone.

It hit the grass, and the hunter practically jumped to his feet. He angrily scanned the nearby trees. "If that's you brats comin' back thinkin' yer tough, yer makin' a big mistake."

Kai hollered, "It's not the kids, you big dumbass."

The hunter whirled in the direction of Kai's voice. "Who's there?" He bent down and picked up his bow. Pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back, he nocked it and slowly turned in a three-sixty-degree scan of his surroundings.

Kai had his attention. He felt his adrenalin rise. Staying low, he shouted, "What's wrong? Mighty dumb-dumb hunter gonna shoot me? Ha! I saw you shoot. You could only hit the broad side of that deer. The little kid shot better than you!" Ironically, Kai was pretty sure that if he ever unwisely attempted to fire a bow, he'd probably just shoot himself in the foot.

The hunter called out, "Yeah? C'mon out! Maybe I'll show you how good I shoot."

Kai eased himself backward through the vegetation. Now that he had the man's attention, there was no need to be this close. Time to start drawing him in the direction of the dungeon. "Are you sure? Maybe I should get closer so you can actually hit me. Actually, give me a month or two. I'll gorge myself until I have a fat belly like yours, so I'll be a better target."

"Show yerself!"

"Say, is that your name, by the way? Fatty fat dumb-dumb? Worst hunter in the land? Guy who gets beat by little boys?"

The hunter swiftly pulled and fired his arrow. It shot into the ground only a few meters from Kai.

Kai freaked out at how close the shot had been. He moved away faster. "Ha! Looks like you enjoy the thought of little boys beating you. You pedophile."

The hunter drew another arrow. Hunching over, he swiftly moved in Kai's direction, actively hunting his target. From the glower on his ugly mug, the man was very ticked off.

Kai turned and jogged, trying to keep as hidden as possible. Thinking like prey, he tried to stay hidden and kept as many trees as he could between him and the hunter. Luckily, the hunter started going off course, getting further away in the wrong direction and giving Kai some space. Pausing behind a tree, Kai called out to get the man back on track, "Look at you. Can even track your quarry properly. Some hunter you are. Lame!"

The hunter whirled and fired off a snap shot.

The arrow slammed into the tree Kai was hiding behind.

Kai jumped with a yelp. Then he took off at a run, no longer attempting to hide, just making himself hard to hit. He glanced over his shoulder.

The hunter had seen him and was running after him, his face red.

Kai sprinted. It occurred to him that he really needed to find a better way of doing this. Constantly acting as bait in order to lure people to the dungeon was gonna get old fast. He was gonna get himself killed. He heard the man stop chasing and looked back.

The hunter was drawing his bow.

Kai dove to the side. An arrow ripped through the grass behind him. He hissed, "Freak me, that was close." Then he was up and running again. He had to get to the dungeon. Weaving through the forest, the hill came into view. He darted for the entrance. Passing through it and into the tunnel, an arrow thudded into the earth outside, just missing him.

Kai skidded to a halt. He turned back, stuck his head outside, and yelled, "You shoot like a pedophile!" He jumped out of the cave and gave the guy a cocky grin and two middle fingers.

The hunter roared and gave chase once more.

Kai raced into the dungeon.

 

[TimBaril]

The Hunter



He entered the cave but saw the stonework at the end and immediately slowed to a crawl. He frowned, puzzled. Some kind of cellar or underground ruin? He'd had no idea this was here. Just before the dirt of the cave became worked stone, he halted. Crouching with his bow in hand and an arrow at the ready, he warily surveyed the room ahead. Where had that runt gotten itself to?

This place was dark and sheltered, perfect for goblins. Although, whatever the heck he'd chased down here was odd as all heck for a goblin. It had been green but skinnier and all bumpy. It'd had those weird ears, like dragon wings. And who knew goblins could speak human? The monsters were usually barely intelligent enough to grunt and spit at each other. Was it some kind of variant? A mutant?

His eyes slowly swept the room. It wasn't very big. A dark opening on the left looked to be a doorway and stairs down. He could see tracks in the dust. The goblin thing must have run straight through here to those stairs. But something about this section of the floor seemed off. Not least because it stank like an open grave.

He grunted. "Trap. Ain't fallin' fer that." This probably wasn't a regular cellar with a feature like that. Slinging his bow over his torso, he edged one foot out and then applied some pressure. Sure enough, the floor opened up with nothing but darkness below. The stench of death billowed up and made him gag. There was definitely something dead down there.

There was a small lip around the pit, just enough for him to balance on the balls of his feet while he pressed his front to the wall. His fingers crawled along, finding crevices and helped keep himself tight to the wall while he shuffled along the wall. It took a couple of minutes and was more nerve-wracking than he'd like, but he finally made it back to safe ground. He took a beat to get his breath back in order.

The bow would be less useful in cramped quarters. He pulled the hatchet out of his belt and got a good grip on the handle. Sidling up to the next doorway, he poked his head around and eyed the stairwell. It curled to the right, so he couldn't see all the way down. The faint light from the cave entrance also petered out here.

He grimaced. He hated using magic when he didn't have to. Damn mages charged an ungodly amount to recharge anything, even though the bastard sons of bitches got their mana back over time if they just waited long enough. Damn magic types lording it over the rest, gouging them for coin with every chance they got.

But now that he was on the trail of that odd goblin, he didn't want to let it go. Thing could talk! Might be worth some money in that if he could capture the thing alive. He grinned at the thought. He wasn't just a hunter. He could trap critters with the best of them, too.

He reached into a pouch and produced a small stone. Pressing a rune with one finger, the stone glowed with yellowish-white light like the noonday sun. It wasn't overly bright, but it was enough to light his way. He held it before him while he descended the stairs, his hatchet poised to chop anything that tried to jump out at him.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped. Just beyond, he could see a hallway going left and right. But before that… He crouched and carefully brushed a few leaves from the pile at his feet. Dark metal was revealed.

He laughed. He called out to the mutant goblin, "I'm a hunter! You don't think I know a bear trap when I see one?" He straightened and extended his leg, taking a big step over the bear trap. "You might be a quick one, but you sure ain't as smart as ol'—" His foot touched stone — and the floor dropped away into another pit trap.



*



Kai



Kai watched from Admin and felt a wave of relief that the hunter had fallen for that trick. He'd had just enough time to place that new pit trap before the hunter started descending the second floor. Kai was just about to turn away when he looked at the screen and did a double-take.

He was shocked to see the hunter spread-eagled over the opening of the pit and somehow just barely hanging on with fingers and toes. In awe, he watched the hunter brace, then push off with his toes. The hunter's legs and body fell into the pit but now he had both hands on the far lip. He dangled there for a moment. Then, with much grunting and straining, he began to pull himself up.

"No!" Kai bolted from the Admin Area. He raced across the first-floor room, then down the stairs. Without even slowing down, he leaped with all his might from the bottom step, soaring up into the air, over the bear trap and over the pit trap, and landed like an angry cat on the hunter's head.

The hunter shouted and shook his head, trying to evade Kai's claws even as he continued to climb out of the pit, soon getting his elbows over the rim.

Feeling himself slipping from the man's head and fearing he'd fall into the pit, Kai hurled himself forward. He landed on the stone floor just outside the pit trap. He sensed movement and rolled out of the way just as the hunter threw a hand out to try to grab him.

"You fucking little shit. I'll kill you! Come here!" He tried again to grab Kai.

Kai leaped out of reach. He curled his claws, looking for an opening to strike and drive the hunter back into the pit, but the hunter's eyes were always on Kai, ready to snatch at him. The much bigger hunter was also continuing to make progress hauling himself out of the pit trap.

"Yer dead meat, varmint."

Kai wished he had something to push the man backward with, but there was nothing around. There were no stones to throw or anything. Then an idea hit him. He whipped off his towel, exposing himself.

The hunter's eyes widened. Then he returned to scowling, this time indignant. "Pervert! Yer a pervert monster!"

With an evil grin, Kai took his member in hand. "Say hello to my little friend." He laughed with abandon and aimed the hose, releasing a blast of warm, yellow liquid right in the bastard's face.

The hunter sputtered as it got in his mouth, and he tried to turn away. He held up a hand to stop the torrential flow but it was no use. Urine hosed his hand and face, getting in his mouth and up his nose. It also made the stone edge of the pit slippery. He began to slide backward. Panicking, he ignored the piss and tried to get a grip on the floor, but it was no use. He slid back and back. With a helpless cry, he fell down into the pit trap.

Kai stepped up to the edge of the ledge and continued to pee, revelling in his victory. He danced and sang, "I got the power. You got the golden shower…" Yeah, there was a reason Kai was no streaming star or pro lyricist. When the flow ended, he shook himself off and then put his towel back on. He looked down at his hands. Then he looked around and frowned. "I'm gonna have to install bathrooms. Not washing after feels disgusting." He wiped his hands on the towel before wrapping it back around his waist.

It was then that he made another discovery. Looking around, he saw a green door outline appear on the wall wherever he looked. A digital box appeared in his vision.



Place Admin Area access, Level 2.



His eyes widened. "Whoa! I can create a back entrance on every floor? Wicked." Elated, he placed the secret access door in the hallway between the two Level 2 rooms. Opening it, stairs appeared, going up. He began to climb.

It wasn't until he was emerging from the stairwell and into the Admin room that he realized that he hadn't gotten a level-up notification yet. Did he still need more XP?

A voice came from the video feed. "Arg. Hello? Pervert monster?"

Kai slowed to a stop and stood there in the dark room, his eyes narrowing.

"Get me a rope and a healer. Get me out of here alive, and I'll make sure you get the reward you deserve."

Kai wasn't an idiot. He could hear the lie in the words. When the hunter said reward, what he really meant was that as soon as he was healed, he'd shoot Kai in the face.

"Come on now, little fella. No hard feelings about this. I'll…I'll even forgive the peeing thing. I just wanna — arrrg!"

Kai lifted his finger from the console.

The hunter's voice was incredulous, and he was tense with pain, "Did…did you just drop a bear trap on me? A bear trap? You fucking little shit. When I get out of here, I'm gonna hunt you down and — aarrgh!"

Kai mashed his finger on the button, dropping more bear traps. It was very handy that they were already set to spring when they appeared.

The screaming continued for a minute. It soon faded into whimpering, begging, and then silence. It was replaced by a certain tinkling chime.



Dungeon Master

Level 3!

Kai pumped both fists. "Boo-yeah! Hunt that, you child-abusing asshat!"

 

[TimBaril]

Kai's dungeon now had a third floor. He proudly wandered around them, feeling like he suddenly owned a giant mansion. There was so much space and so much potential here. Unfortunately, he had no better idea about what to do with it than he did the second floor, which also remained unfilled. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had grand visions of iron maidens and an Indiana Jones-style rolling boulder and cursed treasure that had him giggling and rubbing his hands together. But he wasn't quite at that level yet.

The architectural menu had bestowed only one new item after levelling up: spiked pit traps. The basic pit trap was a rectangular stone pit deep enough to hurt or kill if you fell into it and too deep to easily climb out of. Spiked pit traps were the same but with simple spears of wood at the bottom. He upgraded the one on the first floor, which didn't seem to disturb Slimy or Pondscum at all. They were still working on that one body. It was still going to be a while. And now he had a second body. That was going to stink the place up. He needed more slimes, fast. He used the system to move the second corpse in the pit with the slimes.

But what about the rest of the dungeon? He had multiple empty rooms now, but the system wasn't giving him new traps or features yet. Either he was expected to stick with pit traps and bear traps, or he was expected to fill the space on his own using his own creativity and ingenuity. Neither of those terms had ever been applied to Kai before, but he was going to need to figure out what they meant as quickly as he could if he wanted to keep making progress. Someone else might just wait for monsters to naturally move in and fill the empty spaces on their own, building natural lairs. But that could take years, and he didn't want to waste the time.

He'd have to be proactive. That, at least, was one thing he knew he could actually do. He just wished that there was a better way than personally getting people to chase him into the dungeon. The stress was probably taking years off his too-short life.

He had a bit more gear now, looted from the hunter: bow and arrows, hatchet, knife. All of it was entirely useless to him because it was all too big. Also, who needed to carry a knife when he already had claws? The clothing was too large. It was camo though, so maybe he could make a tent of it or something if he needed to in the forest. He'd gotten his first coins! A few coppers and two silver. He put them all in the chest on the first floor, along with a wish for more to soon follow. The best part of the haul was the light-up stone. He could see pretty well in the dark without it, but this could be useful. He figured out the runic switch pretty fast. He hoped the light would last a long time, but it probably had limited juice.

So, as before, he ventured outside into the open world for ideas and explored. There was plenty of wood in the forest. He could try building structures to make the dungeon look like it had once had a purpose. Maybe he could make one floor look like a monk's retreat with housing and bedding and stuff. Or he could build a few small shacks on one floor and pretend it was a deserted village of long-dead mole people. One room could be turned into a slime breeding room. All he'd have to do is keep hauling dead vegetation down to feed them. He didn't know how they multiplied or how long that took, though.

Maybe there were some other creatures he could turn into pets. He hadn't seen much wildlife yet. He doubted he could convince the wyvern to take up residence below ground. It would be a short conversation. He'd get about two words out before the thing ate Kai. Then Kai would become wyvern crap, and his dreams of becoming human again would be long gone. The same would likely happen if he tried getting that owlbear to chase him into the dungeon. He needed something more his level.

He'd already explored in the direction of the road. He'd discovered the pond. He'd gone in a different direction to discover the hunter. He was slowly getting an idea of the dungeon's above-ground surroundings. So he picked yet another new area to search. He kept his eyes peeled and turned his head back and forth so that his big ears could pick up distant sounds like a mobile satellite dish. That's how he picked up faint sounds that sounded like murmuring.

He traced the odd noises to a particularly dense copse of trees and underbrush. Not wanting to just push his way into that mess and end up in trouble with whatever was hiding in there, he elected to climb a tree to get a better view. He picked one on the edge of the copse and climbed slowly so there was less chance of being noticed by anything inside the brush.

Reaching a point a couple of meters off the ground, he peered around the tree trunk he was hugging, claws digging into the bark.

Beyond the tall grass and bushes, an oval had been dug out of the ground in the dirt. It wasn't deep and only a few paces long. Inside were the sorriest-looking creatures that Kai had ever seen, all piled together like they were huddling for warmth. The creatures were about the same size as Kai. They had the heads of small dragons but with whip-thin lizard-like bodies and no wings. Their scales covered the rainbow, although each figure was dominated by one color. Kai plumbed his extensive video game knowledge and guessed that maybe these were kobolds. He wasn't quite sure because he got gnolls and kobolds confused all the time. At the moment, he figured gnolls were the humanoid hyena people.

The group looked beat up. He could see visible scratches and wounds on many. They wore very little clothing, but what he saw was torn and sometimes bloody. A lot of the creatures were extremely small, and Kai guessed they were kids. The group had the look of exhausted refugees.

Kobolds are typically low-level starter monsters in video games. Newbies are meant to carve through them in the beginning to quickly level up. No one gives much thought to kobolds other than how they're an easy source of early XP. You murder the crap out of them. Then, when you're off and running as a higher-level character, you immediately forget they exist. Cooler monsters await.

Kai was probably as guilty of that carelessness as anyone. To be fair, it's how the games were designed. Designers weren't trying to create empathy; they were busy satisfying the twisted human desire to kill lots of stuff. However, looking down at these sorry things, Kai couldn't help but feel for them. He watched an adult cuddle a child to their chest, and the child snuggle and whimper in return. He watched as the largest kobold patrolled the edge of the dugout with a wooden spear, half its attention on the surrounding bush as they watched for danger and half on those being protected. They patted a shoulder here and whispered what were probably words of encouragement there.

These weren't simple-minded beasts. Taking the time to study them, Kai saw them as living beings, as people who probably shared a lot in common with him or any human. Rather than lead them into the dungeon to feed it XP, Kai's first thought was that maybe he could offer them sanctuary there. They were small, and he had plenty of room. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

Excited, he slid down the tree trunk to the ground. He felt free to make as much noise as he did while plowing through the edge of the copse toward the dugout. Best to give them warning that he was coming so he didn't surprise them. He called out in a friendly tone, "Hello!" He ducked around a bush and shoved aside a thick stand of grasses, seeing the dugout area coming into view. "Hello there! I—urk!" He sharply pulled up, the tip of a spear at his neck. He looked past the whittled wooden point, down the shaft, and to the creature holding the weapon.

It was the kobold that had been on guard duty. The rest of the kobolds had woken and risen, gathering frightened children into their arms, everyone worriedly poised to flee at a word. The guard stared at Kai with narrowed eyes. One wrong move, and that spear was going to go right through Kai.

Kai held up his hands. One hand made a V sign. "Peace?"

The guard barked at him, "Go away!" He had a long, thin snout, kind of like an alligator's, and when he bared his many teeth, they looked sharp. His scales were such a dark red that they were almost brown. A crude bandage covered one eye. He wore a loincloth with splashes of blood on it. A gash on one arm had crusted over, but otherwise, looked pretty fresh. Despite the fact that he stood the same height as Kai, the kobold held that spear with precision and seemed plenty dangerous.

Kai glanced at all the scared faces behind the guard. Yeah, these guys were in bad shape. "Hey, uh, I don't know what you guys have been through, but—"

The kobold jabbed at him, forcing Kai to back up a step. "Go away!"

"I'm trying to help. I—"

"Go!" Another jab that sent Kai back another step so that he was fully in the brush again.

"Ok! Ok, I'm going. Cheese." Kai turned and walked away from the dugout. He was disappointed he'd failed to connect with them. Their harsh reaction hurt a little, but he also knew they were scared and being protective, so he tried not to take it personally.

He walked out of the copse of trees and was just about to step out of a thicker stand of grasses and bush when movement caught his eye. Remembering that he was potential prey, he instantly hit the ground, wary of other creatures. When nothing came hunting him, he slowly poked his head up higher and peered in the direction his attention had been caught.

Two human adventurers quietly snuck towards the copse. From the poor state of their gear, they looked like rookies. The warrior had a gray quilted tunic over leather pants, a small wooden buckler, and a cheap dirk, which looked like a short sword or long knife with no hilt. The other guy was obviously a rogue, going try-hard for the whole ninja aesthetic. It was the middle of the morning, and he was traipsing through the bright green forest in a black ninja outfit. He even had a black scarf over his face, though it must have been warm in this weather. He carried a dagger in each hand, seemingly intent on being a dual-wielder.

Both adventurers were entirely focused on the copse that Kai had just been about to exit. They both had big, eager grins on their young faces. From their intensity, it seemed clear that they were either hunting the kobolds and knew exactly where they were or were just prepared to attack whatever was hidden in the trees.

Kai's instinct was to warn the kobolds. That was weird because Kai considered himself human still, no matter what his body looked like, and the adventurers were human, too. You might think he'd relate to the humans instead. But something about their murderous glee angered him, while the sad state of the vulnerable kobolds triggered a compassion he'd never known he possessed.

Basically, screw those murder-hobos. He was rooting for the mini-dragons.

But what could he possibly do about it? He needed to think fast. Unfortunately, thinking was not Kai's strong suit. He was coming up blank, and those guys were about to enter the copse.

 

[TimBaril]

Kai took a step closer to the adventurers as if he could actually do anything about them but almost immediately stopped. He turned toward the kobolds. But what could he say? Undecided, he took a step in yet another direction, frantically looking around for inspiration, a solution, a tool.

Quickly sweeping his hands around in the brush as quietly as he could, he saw and dismissed a rock and a stick. What could he possibly do with such a weapon? He muttered under his breath, "Come on…" Then a dark patch at the base of a tree caught his eye. He hurried to investigate and found a bunch of dark brown fur and feathers. He found it puzzling until he looked up and saw that the tree trunk had a lot of scratches and spots rubbed bare. He recognized it from a wildlife documentary as a tree bears used to scratch their backs on, which is a hilarious sight. Kai first thought there might be a brown bear near, but then he remembered the owl bear that had come by days ago. Despite not seeing it again, it looked like this was the creature's regular territory.

But how could he use that?

He stared at the fur and feathers, acutely aware that time was running out. If he was going to act to save the kobolds from the adventurers, what could he do? Could he lead the owl bear toward them? He looked around as if he'd be able to spot the beast. Of course, it was nowhere to be seen. This wasn't some novel where easy solutions just fell into a protagonist's lap. Totally unrealistic.

For a split second, a thought ran counter to his initial instincts: why wasn't he running away to save himself? He was the size of a kid's toy now, a toddler with talons (now there was a scary thought). He had no weapons beyond teeth and claws the big humans would just shrug off. He owed the kobolds nothing. The smart thing to do was to run and save himself…wasn't it? Then why did the idea seem so wrong? He shook it off. Those kobolds — those people — were in trouble. He couldn't leave them to die.

Stooping, he picked up a handful of the fur and feathers in his claws. He stared at them. A spark of an idea came to him. Could he…? He shook his head. No, that would be stupid. It would never work. He was about to toss the detritus away, then paused and gave it a second stare. Then again, if he could channel the fear he'd felt before, maybe he could be convincing?

Kai's ears twitched. He heard the adventurers ambushing the kobolds. It sounded like they were taking a moment to villainously taunt their prey before they got to the mass murder part. Kai took a big breath and decided to hell with it. He'd give the crazy idea a shot. He circled the copse of trees until he was opposite to where the adventurers had come in.

He forced himself to hyperventilate and got himself into a panicked state; it wasn't difficult; he was about to throw himself into mortal danger yet again. Eyes wild, he let out a wild screech, then tore through the underbrush into the copse while making lots of noise. He pretended to be focused on looking back over his shoulder as if something were chasing him, even to the point where he plowed right into the backs of the huddled kobolds, who were shaking in fear and anger under the eyes of the gleeful adventuring pair. He and the kobolds all fell in a tangle of limbs.

Kai scrambled to his feet. He whipped his head back and forth, acting madly afraid, aware that everyone's eyes were on him. He told the kobolds, "Owl bear." He glanced back to where'd he run from and began moving toward the adventurers again. He held up the fur and feathers, hand shaking so hard that they came loose so that everyone could see the evidence. "Why aren't you running?" As if unable to believe they weren't already fleeing, he held the fur and feathers up and cried out in desperation, "Owl bear!"

The kobolds all looked to where Kai had come from. Already afraid of the adventurers, they began babbling. The fear was infectious to the point where even the adventurers took note, their malicious grins fading to uncertainty. The kobold with the spear took a step in the opposite direction the owl bear was supposedly coming from. But the rest hesitated.

Kai looked at everyone in disbelief. "Owl bear!" He screamed, "RUN!" Then he ran at the rookies.

The kobolds broke first, pouring en masse out of the dugout. The adventurers reacted as well, turning and taking flight. Kai couldn't believe it had worked! Thankfully, they were taller and with longer legs, so they immediately outpaced Kai as they broke through the thick vegetation.

Kai pretended to be following the rookies for a few loud steps, thrashing the underbrush just to make it seem like he was still panicking. But he soon stopped and spun around. He dashed after the kobolds. Only the fact that they were in a group and had children and babies to carry had slowed them down. The kobold with the spear was leading them, urging them on with limited success.

Kai ran up next to them and waved them in the direction of the hill. He loudly whispered, "Come! This way!"

The spear kobold frowned at him and the others ignored him. They continued without changing course.

They only had seconds before the adventurers realized the truth. Kai got close to the spear wielder. "No owl bear. It was a trick. To help you."

Spear waved him away. "Go! Humans danger!" He pointedly looked in the direction the adventurers had gone.

Kai countered, "I know! Come with me. There's sanctuary. A safe place. I promise. Underground."

Spear obviously didn't trust him. But the others understood enough that a motherly one with a dragon-like baby in her thin arms gave Spear an imploring look, and two of the older kobolds were distinctly hopeful.

An old (woman? It was difficult to discern gender) who was struggling to keep up made her way to Kai's side, causing him to slow to a walk so that she could speak with him. "Underground? Safe?" She looked at him with eyes so full of pain and desperation that they tore at Kai's heart.

He nodded and pulled her arm in the direction of the dungeon. "Yes! Come with me."

The old woman chattered at Spear in their own language, which had a lot of tongue clicks and hisses.

Spear seemed frustrated, likely not trusting the gremlin.

The older woman waved in the direction the adventurers had gone. She said something.

Spear grumbled, then looked at Kai. "Where?"

"This way!" Very glad they were giving him a chance and that he might be able to save them now, he led them toward the hill. They actually passed by the back of the hill, and he could have used the Admin entrance, but he knew they would be blocked from entering that way, so he led them on.

A very scary, very loud screech that turned into a deafening roar resounded through the forest.

Two human males cried out in panic.

Kai looked over his shoulder as they ran. What the heck was going on?

The two adventurers came sprinting out of another strand of trees, their faces contorted in abject terror. By pure bad luck, they were now running in the same direction as Kai and the kobolds.

A moment later, the owl bear appeared for real, standing on its back legs, taller than the humans. It had the head and back feet of an owl and the size, forelegs, and body of a large brown bear. It screech-roared again through a curved yellow beak perfect for tearing strips of meat from a body and reached out with bear paws that had long, hooked black talons that looked like they could dig through concrete. The ursine bird of prey wasn't very fast using bipedal motion, so it dropped to all fours and began gaining on the rookies using big, loping strides that were much, much faster. It began gaining on the rookies. That meant that Kai and the kobolds were next.

Kai didn't have to fake his panic this time. "Run!" He picked up speed. "Run faster!" He might have tried to race ahead, but seeing the way the kobolds struggled, some old, some injured, he threw his arm around a kobold whose scales were more gray than any other color and tried to help it go faster.

They arrived at the cave, and at the sight, many of the kobolds made strained sounds of relief. Spear shot Kai an appreciative look, then waved the others into the opening.

Recalling the traps, Kai ran ahead into the cave. He waved in warning, shouting, "Stop! Stop! Wait! There are traps!" Thankfully, the others pulled up short of the doorway so that Kai could inch around the pit trap to the Admin door, frustrated at the time it wasted. He didn't need to fear personally because the traps wouldn't go off on him, but he needed the kobolds to be wary for a moment longer. In the Admin console, he hurriedly turned the traps all off since it would take too long to do one at a time. Dashing back into the first-floor room, he waved the kobolds forward. "Ok, it's safe to come in. Come on!"

Spear was the first to enter, doing so like a pro, feeling the floor ahead with the butt of his weapon and sliding forward one clawed foot at a time. When the floor remained solid, and no traps sprang, he ascertained that nothing was waiting to eat them, in this room at least, and gestured with his head for his downtrodden tribe to follow inside.

The lizard-like beings looked beaten up and even more exhausted than before, their faces a mixture of anxiousness and hope. Children wept, and babies wailed from the dash to safety. When Kai waved them at the stairway down to the second floor, they eagerly flowed in that direction, Spear leading the way with his weapon ready to impale anything that threatened, wisely too wary to fully trust a stranger appearing out of nowhere to provide a safe haven.

Kai helped them along, urging them without trying to rush them so much that someone got hurt going down the stairs but was still anxious. They could all hear the humans yelling outside, growing closer.

Then, the adventurers appeared at the cave entrance.

"In here!"

"We'll be cornered!"

"We aren't outrunning that thing in the forest!" Without waiting for the warrior to agree, the rogue type sprinted into the dark tunnel.

Cursing the bad luck that had led the adventurers to follow and learn of the dungeon, Kai lightly pushed on the back of the last, grey-scaled kobold as it moved into the narrow stairwell. "Hurry!" Glancing at the incoming rogue, Kai dashed back toward the Admin door.

The rogue guessed at the pit trap in front of the entrance and didn't even slow, leaping high into the air.

Kai dove through the Admin door. He heard the rogue land right behind him. The rogue reached out, but the Admin door slammed shut. Kai sat on the floor, his little chest puffing up and down. "That was too frickin' close." He panted, trying to get some oxygen into his body. Movement drew his eyes to the wall screen.

The rogue was moving toward the stairs. He called to the other adventurer, "There's a pit trap just inside the door! Jump it as hard as you can!" Then he was leaning against the corner of the stairwell and peering around to look down the stairs.

Kai cursed and groaned as he scrambled to his feet. The traps were all turned off!

The rogue held out his hand. A lit torch appeared in it. Magic? An item box skill? He cautiously slipped around the corner and down the stairs.

Kai rushed to the controls. He had to get there before the rogue descended. His fingers rapidly mashed the buttons. The traps came back on. He looked up.

The warrior had somehow managed to leap the pit trap as well. He stumbled to his feet and toward the stairs.

They weren't going to fall into the traps. They were going to find the kobolds cornered below and murder them. The dungeon wouldn't save them; it would be their doom.

Kai looked behind at the Admin door. He breathed hard. Then he ran. He threw the Admin door open at a touch, raced across the first-floor room, and jumped, throwing all his little weight and momentum forward.

He crashed into the back of the much taller warrior, who, not expecting the blow from behind, cried out and tripped, falling forward. He couldn't catch himself and slipped. He fell down the stairs with a rattle and cries of pain, his buckler and armor banging on the steps. A second cry of surprise came with a thump of bodies colliding as the falling warrior must have hit the rogue from behind. There were more sounds of people crashing down the stairs. Then a sharp but wet clang sounded as the bear trap at the bottom of the stairs activated.

The warrior called out in disbelief, "Kenny. Kenny! Oh my gosh." His voice rose in rage, "You killed Kenny. You bastard!"



Dungeon Master

Level 4!



There was no time to celebrate. Kai was picking himself up off the stone floor when he heard the warrior find his feet, turn, and begin pounding up the stairs. The adventurer was coming for him! Kai whirled and sprinted for the Admin door. He glanced back and saw the warrior's hate-filled eyes glaring as he pulled his dirk out of its sheath.

The warrior screamed, "I'll fucking kill the shit out of you!" He raised the dirk.

Kai darted into the Admin area. The door automatically closed.

The adventurer slammed his shoulder into the door. But it was a wall again, made of stone and utterly impervious. His voice came over the speakers, "I'll kill you, you hear me?! I'll fuckin' find your ass and — shit!"

Kai thanked his lucky stars that the Admin was a safe space. Just how many close calls was he going to survive. He put his hands on his knees and tried to breathe. But only for a minute. He looked up at the screen and saw the adventurer disappear into the stairwell.

The kobolds were down there.

Kai pushed through the pain and got to the console. The only thing keeping the lizard guys safe was a single pit trap down each hallway leading the the second-floor rooms. Assuming the kobolds had gotten into one of the second-floor rooms before he'd turned the traps back on. He hoped none of them had fallen into a pit. He had a flash of deep unease as he imagined a mother and baby falling into a pit trap. In a near panic, he brought up the schematics.

The second-floor pit traps were all empty.

Kai sagged in relief. "Cheeses sliced. Thank goodness." He allowed himself to breathe. Moving the camera around, he got a look at the second floor.

The kobolds were all huddled in one of the end rooms on the second floor. But they had nowhere to go. The stairs to the third level weren't in that room, so they couldn't descend lower. Not that the third floor offered any shelter either.

The human warrior was inching down the hall with a lit torch in hand. He must have grabbed it from his dead friend. He had his eyes on the huddle of miserable kobolds but kept glancing down and around, testing the floor and walls for more traps. He wasn't going to get caught again. He'd even managed to get past the pit immediately after the bear trap below the stairs. Poking his dirk at the floor, he caused the hallway pit trap to open. He growled, "You're not getting me, too, asshole. I'm gonna kill all your friends. Then I'm gonna find you wherever you are in this shit hole and kill you too."

Kai watched, helpless as the adventurer took a few steps back, then made a running leap over the pit trap. He just barely cleared it, but clear it he did, falling to his knees, torch and dirk slamming into the ground as he fell forward and caught himself.

Spear, the only kobold warrior, darted forward, the tip of his weapon aimed at the human. But he was too far away.

The warrior unhurriedly rose to his feet. He didn't even raise the torch and weapon into defensive positions. He waited for Spear's long charge to bring him close, then, with a sneer, booted the little mini-dragon in the slender chest.

Spear and his spear went flying backward. He crashed to the ground and slid for a meter, body limp.

The rest of the kobolds raised their eyes from their warrior's still body and looked at the adventurer in universal despair.

The adventurer gave them an evil grin.

 

[Pinklestia]

Why he is not dropping bear traps on the human?

 

[TimBaril]

Why he is not dropping bear traps on the human?

Click to shrink...

He prob didn't think of it at the time when he was panicking. lol

 

[TimBaril]

Samwise



Samwise couldn't believe this was happening. It was supposed to be a throwaway quest, easy silvers for newbie bronze-rank adventurers like him and Kenny. More experienced adventurers had cleared out the kobold village; all he and Kenny had been asked to do was clean up some of the broken runaways. An easy extermination quest for weak-ass mobs. It should have been a cakewalk. A fucking joke and easy money. Easy XP.

But Kenny was fucking dead! DEAD!

Samwise hatefully glared at the kobolds in the shadows of the room, cowering before him, and felt only rage. That little prick who'd hit him from behind, knocking him down the stairs and into Kenny wasn't there. But Samwise would find him. Would haul him out of whatever crack he was hiding in, in this crap dungeon. If he couldn't do it on his own, he'd go back to town, tell the guild, and talk some properly dangerous bastards into coming back here with him and getting justice for Kenny.

Kenny. They'd been friends for years, since their early teens. Had decided to be adventurers together, had trained together. Now he was fucking gone! "It wasn't supposed to be this way. No one was supposed to die!"

The arm holding Samwise's dirk trembled, his grip so tight that his knuckles must have been white. Chest heaving, he took a step forward, bent on glorious revenge and spilling a lot of blood.



~



Kai frantically searched for something to do to save the kobolds. He lamented, "I wish I was smarter!" Not knowing the easy answer was so frustrating. He tried to use the system to throw traps at the adventurer, but the system wouldn't allow it. He didn't know why. Too unfair in this instance? He silently cursed.

An old kobold picked up the fallen spear and brandished it. He looked noble and defiant but utterly weak against a giant.

The adventurer swung. He did so casually, with complete contempt for a being a fraction of his size and strength. It was like swinging a bat at an old cat too aged to even get out of the way. Blood sprayed onto the floor. The old kobold crumpled to the ground.

Kai ran a clawed hand over his head, freaking out. What to do? The dungeon had so few options as of yet. Nothing was offensive, either. He couldn't press a button and make guns pop up out of the ceiling or just delete the adventurer.

A mother screamed in fright, echoed by others in the huddle. She turned her back, hunching over a babe in her arms. The warrior chopped down. More blood sprayed. She screamed again, this time in agony, arching her back as she cried out.

Kai scrambled through the menu yet again for an idea. There had to be something here! He pounded the screen in frustration. He was so useless! Even if he ran out there and tried to help, what could he possibly do? He'd just get cut down too.

He watched the warrior toying with his prey, fury on his features, probably wanting to watch them suffer as much as possible after losing his partner. The sight made Kai's heart ache. Kai might be safe in Admin, but if he couldn't find a way to save them, the entire tribe was about to die while he just sat there and watched. It made him feel cowardly and guilty.

His eyes landed on menu items at the bottom. Creatures. Minions. Why had this caught his attention? These sections were useless right now. Creatures listed his two slimes. They couldn't help. Minions. There wouldn't be anything listed there because he hadn't recruited anyone yet. At a loss, he clicked the menu item anyway.

Kai stopped, and his breath caught.



Kobolds (19)



They were grayed-out at the bottom of the Minions screen. Did that mean he could make them minions? Would it help? Would it give him more options? Hope returned. He had to try. He touched the entry and prepared to drag it to the top of the screen to add them — but paused.

Minions. What did that mean? He'd read the help notes when adding the slimes to the system, and tried to recall them quickly now. Official dungeon Creatures were something like natural features, wild animals, because they were limited beings without much sentience, if any. He recalled minions as having some kind of agency. While creatures could be made part of the dungeon without asking, minions had to give consent.

He pictured a digital window showing up for each kobold, the desperate people on the run for their lives, whatever home they'd had gone now, only trying to survive, to protect their children. He imagined the message they'd get:



The Dungeon Master has offered you a place as minions.

Do you accept? Y/N



They were refugees with no real choice. Of course, they'd say yes. They'd sell themselves in desperate hope it would save them. Some might balk and refuse, choosing to die rather than submit. Could he live with that?

On the screen, Spear weakly picked himself off the floor behind the adventurer. He was haggard and could barely stand upright. He clutched his chest with one arm and limped to the side toward his spear.

The warrior noticed. He turned to face Spear. But he didn't move from his spot. He gestured with the torch. "Go ahead. Pick it up."

Kai felt the pressure to act, twisting his gut. Minions. The name bugged him. "What's a minion? A servant? Someone unimportant? A slave? Cannon fodder?" It made him think back to his old life when he'd been a nobody, just another drone at an office. A wage slave. Even working in a small office, for a fairly small company, it was no different than being part of some international behemoth. Nobody up the ladder had cared about him. He had been a tool that the owners used to make more money. The people in charge had never bothered to get to know him as a person. They'd never invited him out for drinks and would never have wanted him to invite them over for dinner or something. He'd existed to do a job and been paid at the lowest rate possible so that the owners could make the most profit possible. He'd been an unimportant, replaceable minion. The same was true of most people these days, wasn't it?

As kids, we all have dreams and passions. We imagine growing up and having fun and interesting lives. Maybe we'll be professional soccer or basketball players, scoring and winning championships to great acclaim and hero worship. Maybe we'll take our love of drawing and become animators or get a bunch of online supporters so we can create new pictures every day and share them with people who love them. Maybe we'll take our love of investigating the mysteries of the universe into a lab or out in the field and be the coolest scientists ever. We'll do something that matters, and people will appreciate us. We'll be in charge of our fate and future.

But it's rarely true. With each passing year, capitalism grew more out of control. Inequality rose and caused greater pain. You couldn't open a little mom-and-pop store or restaurant anymore because the corporate giants were buying up everything around them, taking those opportunities away. Whether you were in an office or a factory or a chain restaurant, as workers, you were just another line on a balance sheet, an employee number, something barely tolerated until you could be replaced by a machine or computer with a new piece of software. You weren't part of the team; you were something to be used.

We didn't matter anymore. We weren't people anymore, just tools. Minions.

It was great for those few on top: the slave owners, the executives, and the wealthy investors. Every year, they got richer and more powerful while everyone else received less. Kai had been placed in that same position, the one in charge of the dungeon, and the system was giving him a chance to make tools out of people so he could enrich himself.

Kai had been given not just the keys to a kingdom but the kingdom itself. He was solely in control here. He could do anything he wanted with his dungeon. He could act like a god, manipulating people into his sphere of power and then using them however he wanted. He could have the kind of elite existence most people could only dream of. The dungeon system even wanted it. It labelled people in the dungeon as minions. Those creatures would exist to serve and obey Kai. As the dungeon grew, he could build a personal army, a harem, a bureaucracy dedicated only to his every whim and wish. He could breed a legion of kobolds to throw at adventurers who came into the dungeon. He could have servants bring him every meal, cook and clean for him, massage his feet twice a day, and address him as lord or king.

The path was already laid out for him. All he had to do was walk down it.

Kai brought the kobold icon back to the grayed-out area and released it. He stared at it for a long second before shaking his head. He refused to be part of the problem, no matter how tempting it was. "It's wrong. I hated being a pawn. I won't do the same to them." He looked up and around in all directions as if speaking to the dungeon itself or whatever power was behind it. He shouted out, "I won't make them slaves. I won't tell them that they don't matter, the way I was always treated. They don't deserve that. You hear me?!"

On the wall screen, Spear lifted his spear with one hand and pointed it at the human warrior. Ever-so-slowly, his long chin rose, the proud little mini-dragon defiant in his last moments, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for others. Whatever he felt on the inside, he looked fearless as he met the taller human's eyes, flickering torchlight reflecting in both of their orbs. His chest rose and fell with a shudder; perhaps the kick had broken ribs. He was doomed. But he challenged the adventurer anyway, telling him, "Come."

Kai watched the scene playing out and felt a pang of empathy in his chest. It was quickly followed by an upswell of emotion that must have been inspiration because he whispered, "I wish I could be like that."

The human warrior stared at the kobold warrior. Was there any respect there? Compassion? His face betrayed nothing except anger. He stepped forward and lifted his dirk high. The steel glowed in the light. He lunged and chopped down.

Spear tried to block, but the blade effortlessly cut the thin wooden haft of the kobold-made spear in twain. It was really only a sharpened branch, like something you'd use to cook hotdogs over a fire. The force swept the remnant of the weapon out of Spear's hand like a broken child's toy, leaving him unarmed.

Kai looked down at the console again. He tried to click on the Minions menu to change it. Nothing happened. He rapidly clicked again and again. His own anger rising, he snapped at the system, "Stupid— You're some kind of magical, legendary dungeon, aren't you? Help me! Help them! They're not minions! They're people! Let them be…residents. Let them live here, dammit!" He kicked the console.

The console flickered.

Kai went still. Had he broken something?

The console fuzzed, the words becoming unreadable. When it cleared, the title Minions morphed into Residents.

Kai's lips split into a grateful smile. Excitedly, he exclaimed, "Yes!" He dragged the kobold tribe icon into the coloured area and released it. He looked up at the screen.

The group of kobolds had been huddling in the corner, screaming, weeping, and wailing. The wounded mother bled heavily. Only Spear stood defiant. Yet he did so while looking down at his empty hand while the adventurer looked down on him.

Then the sounds in the room rippled with uncertainty. Voices trailed off. The dungeon room became almost quiet but for the weeping of the children and babes. In the huddled group of kobolds, eyes with slitted pupils stared off into the distance at something. Questioning and amazed murmurs arose.

It was enough that it caught the adventurer's attention. His frown turned from one of anger to one of confusion. He looked away from Spear and over at the group.

One of them lifted a finger and tentatively touched the air in front of them. Their expression was one of disbelief.

Another followed suit. Then more did.

The adventurer's frown deepened for several long seconds. Slowly, his confusion changed to suspicion, swiftly followed by alarm, and he whipped his head around to look at Spear. After all, as an adventurer, he must regularly use these weird, magical menus and have seen plenty of others do so as well. He must have recognized the gestures and looks on their faces, but it had taken a moment to click because he probably just hadn't expected to ever see so-called monsters acting that way. He took an involuntary step back from Spear.

Spear, frowning like he couldn't believe this was happening, gingerly touched an invisible button in the air in front of him.

Kai felt a rush of hope. He looked down at the console, where Kobolds (19) was now lit up. He touched the icon. Options appeared. He grinned wider. He hovered a hand over one option and looked up before he pressed down. "Let's even the odds a bit, you bully." He pressed.

The kobolds gasped in surprise and awe. In the hands of the eleven adults appeared quality stone weapons: hand axes, stone-tipped spears, and small bows with quivers of arrows. Everything was professionally made, and even if it wasn't some fancy steel weapon made by humans in some city, they were decidedly deadly and far higher quality than the spear that had been destroyed.

The adventurer looked around in shock. "How the fuck—?" He raised his dirk in defence.

Kai ran his down the list of kobolds on the console. He touched one, and Spear became highlighted on the screen. Kai touched a button next to the kobold:



Designate Champion



Spear staggered suddenly under the weight of crude armour that now covered his body. It was only a chest plate and shoulder pauldrons, but they were metal. A weight tugged his arm down. He caught himself and looked down to find a brand new spear in his hand, this one with a properly hewn shaft and a chipped stone spearhead that looked very sharp.

The adventurer noticed, turning a tad pale. "Shit. What the hell is going on here?"

A wonderful smile slid onto Spear's face. It revealed a lot of teeth. He turned it on the human. Then he grabbed his spear with both hands. He taunted his adversary, saying, "Let's try again."

The other kobolds took account of their new weapons. They turned glares on the adventurer. Someone growled.

Kai laughed out loud. "Yeah, baby! Come on!"

The adventurer started to panic. But in his inexperience, he stood rooted when he should have acted.

The kobolds placed babies down in the corner of the room. They pushed toddlers behind them, then stood in front to protect the young. They raised their weapons. But they were armed with more than paleolithic tools now; they were also armed with hope. Hope spread like a wildfire.

The human warrior cursed and finally broke out of his trance to act.

But Spear was already calling out, "Kill!"

The adventurer tried to swing his dirk at the crowd of kobolds, but, seeing the arrows aimed at his face, he ducked. The arm holding the torch had his buckler strapped to it, and it protected his head from the projectiles. But one hit him in the side with enough force to hurt. He snarled and tried to attack again, straightening and lifting his weapon.

Spear lunged and stabbed the human in the side. The stone tip just pierced the leather armour the human wore. It was no life-threatening injury, but it was enough for the young man to wince and flinch away.

The other kobolds rushed him, swinging axes and jabbing with spears. They attacked his legs with more raw emotion than skill, and the creatures were small and weak, but there were ten of them and they could still do some damage.

"Get the fuck away from me!" The adventurer whipped his blade back and forth in front of him but had to duck and cover again as more arrows came at him. One pierced a bicep. "Gah!" He kicked out, sending several kobolds flying.

Spear was relentless, and while the others attacked the adventurer's front, Spear kept coming in from the side, punching small holes in the human's armour and flesh.

They drove the adventurer back.

The human cursed, kicked, and swung his dirk. Kobolds went down. Some didn't get up.



Kobolds (18)



Kai hammered a fist on the system console. "No!" One had died.

But with each wound inflicted on an already beleaguered people who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain, they advanced relentlessly, without thought to their own lives, let alone injury. It was kill or be killed.

An old kobold went down, head struck from his thin neck.



Kobolds (17)



Kai cried out like he'd been struck. "Dammit!" He leaned forward, spellbound by the battle.

A stone-headed axe bashed into the side of the adventurer's knee, buckling it.

The adventurer nearly fell to his knees, throwing his arms up to balance himself.

Two arrows hit him in the chest. Neither pierced his armour, but they must have hurt because he yelped and took yet another step back. Perhaps realizing that being surrounded in the middle of the room was to his disadvantage, he backed up faster. If he could get into the hall, then they'd all have to come at him head-on.

The kobolds noticed him retreating and must have understood his strategy. After all, as a small species, outnumbering and swarming their enemies was probably a key part of kobold strategy. They wouldn't be able to do it as well if the adventurer was in the hall. So they sought to press him even harder.

Unfortunately, they were just too weak. The warrior cut a kobold down and bashed another in the face with his buckler.



Kobolds (16)



Despairing at the death, Kai screamed at the adventurer on the wall screen, "Fuck you!"

The warrior knew he was about to get himself into a better position. He smiled, and there was no mercy there.

 

[Pinklestia]

So... not making a hole next to the human?

 

[TimBaril]

Three more arrows came at the human in quick succession.

One clipped his forehead, and he cried out with annoyance, "Argh! Fuckin' mobs!" He hunched under his buckler and wiped blood away on his arm, backing up faster. He put his foot down behind him — and the heel dipped down without warning. He'd reached the edge of the hallway pit trap. The adventurer caught himself just in time, his arms pinwheeling to keep himself from falling. The position left him completely open to attack.

Spear drove himself forward, ignoring the flailing dirk so that it chopped down on Spear's shoulder with a crunch, probably shattering bone. But it didn't stop the fierce warrior. With a screech of hate, he thrust the spear into the human's stomach.

The adventurer's eyes went wide. Arms reaching for nothing but air, he fell backward into the pit with a despairing cry.

A ragged, triumphant cheer went up from the kobolds. They raised their weapons into the air and shook them, hissing and dancing. The evil adventurers had been defeated! They were safe! Much hugging, back-slapping, smiling, and relieved breathing followed. Spear sagged against the wall and painfully slid to the floor. His eyes closed. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one badly injured or bloody and unmoving on the floor. Victory had come with a brutal cost.

With someone in the pit trap, the door in the floor stayed open, so there was no using that hallway for the moment. After moving the second-floor secret door to the room with the kobolds, Kai went down the secret Admin stairs to the second floor to join them. Sliding the door open, he surveyed the scene. His emotions were mixed. He was very glad — relieved — that so many of the creatures had lived, especially the kids. But he was sad to see blood on the floor. Three bodies lay still. Many of the kobolds knelt by their sides, weeping, while others tended to the children who were safe at last.

Kai walked over to where a green and a dark pink kobold each knelt over the body of the old one who fell first taking Spear's place in defence of the tribe. The body lay seemingly unnaturally still with a sense of wrongness. Kai had seen the person moving only minutes ago, alive and heroic. He wasn't sure why he was so affected by the death of someone he didn't know, who wasn't human, wasn't a friend. But seeing the tears flowing and the way the living two held the dead one's hands, cradling them as they moaned and mumbled heartfelt things, Kai wished he had that kind of relationship with others, where people cared that much about each other.

He stood close but respectfully, not too close, and offered his condolences, "I'm sorry for your loss. He seemed very brave."

The dark pink one didn't look away from the face of the dead, but the green one glanced up, yellow eyes filled with pain, and gave him a wincing smile, bobbing their head twice before turning back to the departure of their loved one.

Multiple kobolds came up to Kai and shook his hand and said something in their language that he guessed was effusive thanks. He felt pleased and proud of himself, yet guilty that he hadn't saved everyone. Three had died; should they really be grateful? Shouldn't he have done more somehow?

Kai awkwardly made his way through the crowd to where Spear sat against the wall. He gave an upward nod to the fierce defender. "Hey. You ok?"

Spear opened his eyes, looking spent. But before he could reply, an old kobold bustled over. Their scales must once have been crimson but were now mostly grey. The old one hovered over Spear, talking in their native language, all clicks and hisses, fussing over him and checking his injuries. Spear said things back. The old one made appreciative sounds and gestures as they fingered the armour Spear now wore, even patting it and giving Kai a wide smile that was missing a few teeth. Unfortunately, the patting was on Spear's crippled shoulder, and he hissed in pain. The old one lightly batted him on the head like he should suck it up. They went back to trying to get the armour off him so they could tend to him properly. Spear looked like he was barely tolerating the attention and growled back.

Kai watched the back and forth; it felt familiar. He asked Spear, "Family?"

Spear practically rolled his eyes. "Mother's mother." He said something in his language and got himself slapped on the nose, though his grandmother didn't even look up or reply, still busy.

A tap on the back got Kai to turn around.

A deep purple kobold with a white chest and belly stood there, looking nervous and happy both. She held a baby on her hip and gestured at Spear like she wanted to get past.

Kai quickly stepped aside. "Oh. Sorry." He watched the kobold, guessing it was female, as she knelt by Spear and fussed over him just as much as the other while also trying to shush the baby.

Spear's gruff impatience grew. He growled at both of the ones tending him and got two slaps on the snout for his unappreciative rudeness.

Kai laughed. "More family?"

Spear nodded. "Mother."

"Ah. Right. I see the resemblance." That was technically true, as he could barely tell the kobolds apart, and gender differences were beyond him. Thank goodness they came in a variety of colours so he could at least begin to identify them.

Spear tried to push the women away. "They act like I'm youngling. Not youngling! Am fine!"

Both women stopped what they were doing and gave him a flat stare.

Spear proudly defied their love and concern for about two and a half seconds before wilting with a look of shame.

The grandmother snorted and went back to work, finally pulling the pauldron from his damaged shoulder, making Spear wince.

Kai bent over and waved at the baby. "And this?"

Spear grunted, "Sister."

Seeing him giving the baby attention, the mother flashed Kai a smile. She held the baby out and bounced her a little. She allowed Kai to rub the tiny thing's head very carefully because of his claws. The baby was absurdly adorable. Human babies were kind of cute, but they had nothing on newborn kittens. And newborn kittens had nothing on newborn baby dragon people. The mother pointed to Kai and to the walls around them. "Home? Truth?"

Kai beamed. "Truth. Home. I—if you want, I mean. You don't have to stay, but you can."

She obviously didn't understand him completely but seemed happy enough. She turned away from Spear and took Kai's hand, repeatedly bowing her head and speaking in her own tongue.

"Uh, I don't…"

Spear translated, "Say thank you. To you. Home."

"Right." Kai cleared his throat, feeling very emotional, though he tried not to let it swamp him. "Yeah, so you guys can stay as long as you want. You're residents now, so the traps won't react to you. You can walk around safely. Well, be careful still." He pointed at the still-open pit. The sight of it gave him pause, and he frowned, staring. Why was it still open? It should close itself after someone falls in and dies. Was it stuck?

An unexpected voice emerged from the pit, "Hello? Is anyone there? I…I'm still alive down here. I landed on one of these spikes. But it's ok! It missed my spine. But I could really use some help. Anyone?"

Everyone froze in silence, Kai and all the kobolds. Nobody moved. Even the children and babies quieted. They all turned to look at the pit. The mood became really awkward.

Kai wondered if he should say or do something but felt weird about it with the adventurer dying so loudly right there.

An orange kobold came over and stood next to Kai. For a moment, he looked like he was going to walk over to the pit and look down inside. Then his stomach really loudly rumbled. A couple of other kobolds snickered. Then another stomach rumbled. Then a third. Snickers turned into laughs. These creatures must have been on the run for a while. They were starving. Now that the fight and flight were over, their bodies were alerting them to other needs.

Before Kai could offer up any jerky and bread, the orange kobold waved to Spear's mother. The mother passed the baby she was holding to Spear, then joined the other kobold in making their way around the edge of the pit trap. There was barely enough rim for half a small foot, so one kobold went on each side of the hallway, then they leaned forward and braced their hands against each other, making a bridge. Together, they shuffled sideways down the hall and over the pit.

"A-are you coming to help? Thank you! Thank you so mu— Wait. Where are you going?"

Kai watched, bewildered as to what the two kobolds were after. They vanished around the corner to where the stairs up were. He had his answer a minute later when the pair returned, mightily hauling the corpse of the first adventurer. The former rogue was missing his head. Kai grimaced, guessing what part of the rookie had landed in the bear trap earlier.

The kobolds dragged the corpse to the edge of the pit and then got into a discussion about how they were going to get it over the hole. A lot of words were exchanged. Ultimately, the remaining adult kobolds, except for Spear, all went over to the far side of the pit trap. They lined up on both sides of the body, then heaved it up into the air. Using the corpse like a keystone in an arch, they made a much bigger bridge this time and shuffled across the pit while holding the body up and leaning on it for support at the same time. It was quite the feat of teamwork and mobile engineering.

"What are you guys… That's Kenny! What are you doing with Kenny? You bastards!"

The kobolds carried the rogue's corpse into the centre of the room. The dead kobolds were respectfully moved over to one wall. Then they collectively began stripping the human body. The gear was only half gone when the first kobold carved a knife into the corpse, slicing out a bit of shoulder. They popped it into their mouth. Chewing loudly with an open mouth, they bent to cut more strips of flesh out and handed them out to others. Soon, others joined in. It was an impromptu feast.

Kai watched in silence. He opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. On the one hand, as someone who still thought of themselves as human, watching one get eaten was super surreal. On the other, if he tried to rationalize it, was this really any different than human adventurers hunting down some monster and eating it? Like, if you'd been attacked by a delicious cow and you turned it into steaks, that was kinda the same. Fair was fair, right?

The still-not-dead adventurer plaintively called out, "My blood is making the spike slippery. I…I'm starting to slide down. The spike is poking up through my guts. And I can feel the wood against my spine when I move. Ahh! This really hurts. Please, someone!"

 

[TimBaril]

One of the kobolds approached Kai with a handful of strips of human flesh, bloody and raw. Human sushi. While chewing on one, it offered the others to Kai.

Kai smiled and shook his head. "No thanks." He might be a gremlin now, just another 'monster', but the thought of eating humans turned his stomach.

The kobold nodded, seemingly not offended. Then it sat down on the edge of the pit trap with its legs dangling over the side with no more worry than it was sitting down for lunch on a park bench or wall overlooking a beach or something. It gnawed on the human sushi while staring down into the pit, watching the adventurer below.

"The spike is pushing out through my belly. Please help me! It's gonna… It's gonna… Ahh! Oh fuck. Oh fuck, it tore right through my belly. The spike has gone right through me. I'm starting to slide down the shaft. I'll just try to take some of the pressure off by grabbing onto this other spike. Ahh! The spike went right through my hand! Now my hand is impaled too! And I can still feel the spike rubbing up against my spine. This is so unnatural. Please. Someone. Anyone. Pull me up. I'm begging you!"

The pleas of the dying young man were difficult to listen to. So Kai re-entered the Admin Area upstairs, then muted the sound from the camera feed. Bringing up the console menu, he looked around to see if any new options had come up after achieving Level 4. He found the section for Equipment, where the cistern had been located, and discovered two new cooking options: a campfire and a runic stove.

There was no point in using a campfire indoors; the smoke and gas given off would kill people. There also wasn't any wood to burn unless they went out and cut some down. Curious about the stove, he created one in the Admin room. Picking it up off the floor, he examined it. The flat, square runic stove looked a lot like an induction stove, the kind you plug in and sit on a counter or table or something, except that this one didn't use electricity and had no cord. It was big enough for a single pot or frying pan. In the middle was a large, faintly red spiral. In the corner was a small runic symbol about the size of a thumbprint. Experimentally, he pressed his thumb to the small rune. Very soon, the large red spiral began glowing and putting out a fair amount of heat. He now had access to a working stove!

Thrilled, Kai excitedly carried the stove down into the other room. He called out to the kobolds as he returned, "Here! Here! Try this!" He placed the runic stove down on the stone floor next to the corpse.

All of their dragonic eyes lit up.

The adventurer plaintively called out, "Guys? My intestines are caught on the tip of the spike. The more I slide down, the more my intestines are being pulled out. It's revolting. And it stinks. It's like staring up at links of sausage in a butcher's shop. But I think we can just put them back in and fix it all with a needle and thread. Could you lend me a couple of healing potions? I'd really appreciate it. I'll pay you back, promise."

The kobolds went to work cutting even more strips of meat and fat off the dead man. They laid these on the glowing red heating surface. In seconds, the flesh began to sizzle, bubble, and pop as it fried. The sight and smell put the kobolds into a hunger frenzy. They nattered away at each other like a big happy family around the dinner table while many arms reached in to flip pieces. Adults fed half-cooked chunks to the kids, who eagerly ate it all up and begged for more.

"Wh-what's that smell? It smells delicious. And it's making me hungry. Which is weird because I don't have a stomach anymore. I can see it though. Hanging in front of me. Alongside my intestines. I'd really like to put it back inside me if you could see yourselves to giving me some help." A pause. "Hey. What's that smell? What are you cooking? Wait. Wait, is that my friend? Kenny? Are you cooking Kenny? Are you eating him? You sick…" A deep breath. "That's ok. It's fine. Sorry I yelled. You can eat Kenny if you like. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. So if you could just, you know, give me a hand? Pull me out of here? And if you have anyone with really good sewing skills, I'd be super appreciative. Guys? Can you hear me up there? I don't suppose one of you is a doctor?"

Of course, everyone could hear. Kai and Spear shared a disturbed glance. This was going on for a really long time. The stupid adventurer just refused to die. Maybe it was skills or levels or something. Did other people level up? Actually, Kai had no idea, but he guessed they did. That was typical gamelit stuff when people were sent to a new world. If it had happened to Kai, others probably had gone through something similar.

Spear groaned in pain and levered himself off the floor to stand again, much to his grandmother's protestations. He bent over, picked up his nice new spear, and, while holding one arm close to his body to protect his injured shoulder, walked over to the edge of the pit. He extended the spear down into the pit trap.

"Oh! Oh, thank you! You beautiful soul. You wonderful hum—, er, mons—, er, you beautiful person. Thank you so much for rescuing me. You won't regret it, I swear. Let me just grab hold of this. Thank you. Argh. My hand is really weak right now, but I'm trying. I've just lost so much blood. But thank you for this. From this day forward, I'll dedicate my entire life to paying you back for this incredible act of faith and forgiveness. I… Hey, wait. What are you doing? Are you pushing me deeper? You are. You're pushing me further down into the pit just to shut me up, aren't you? You can't do this! I'm an adventurer. I'm in good standing with the guild. I'm…I'm a good, er decent, uh, I'm a person, dammit! Ok, so I've done a few things I'm not so proud of, but please, you have to help me. I don't want to die at the hands of a bunch of fucking bronze-rank mobs — wait! I didn't mean it! Stop pushing. Please! Arghlsh. One of my lungs was just pulled out. Stop before the other one—" The sound abruptly cut out at long last.

Spear pulled the weapon out of the pit trap. He and Kai shared another glance. Neither looked down into the hole. The kobold put the spear down on the floor. Then, he joined his fellows around the stove. The kobolds enthusiastically sliced off more pieces of Kenny and roasted the meat. Hot grease dripped down their reptilian mouths, and the dungeon filled with the scent of meat cooking. The kobolds were small, and the human carcass was quite large. It quickly turned into a bit of a party. Whatever they'd been running from, the way they were overflowing with happy relief, they must not have believed they'd survive.

Kai was really moved by the sight. For the first time in a really long time, maybe ever, he felt really good about having done something that mattered. He felt like he'd gained a little more self-worth as a person.

He quietly backed away from the cheerful, feasting group of saved refugees and returned to the Admin Area, saying nothing. He returned a few moments later with a loaf of bread in each arm. The kobolds cheered in unison, even more excited. Kai felt his chest swell. They ripped the bread into pieces, passed them out, and laid chunks of charred Kenny inside, like Kenny hamburgers. One yanked a section of intestines out of the adventurer, tied off the ends, and roasted it like a sausage before making a Kenny hot dog out of it. It had to be said that kobolds were not the type to waste any part of their food. It was clear that they were going to eat every scrap of flesh from the adventurer's bones.

Kai wasn't sure that giving them a taste for human meat, which they evidently enjoyed from all the happy chatter and lip-smacking, was a good idea. No helping it though. Kai made a mental note to find more slimes to take care of yet another corpse down in the pit. Assuming it was a corpse by now. The man had stopped speaking, probably on account of not having lungs inside of his body. By all that was right, he should have perished by now. Kai frowned and looked over at the pit. Then he heard those now-familiar chimes in his head.



Level 5!



He pumped his fist. "Woo! There it is!" Hot butter, he was on a dinner roll. "Five levels down, only ninety-five to go. Progress, baby! Freakin' progress!" He was so thrilled! Wow, did it ever feel good to make measurable progress in life. You can see a path forward, and when you take steps, you can actually achieve something if you try hard, get really lucky, and don't die.

Seeing the pit trap finally close again, Kai walked over. He knew the system had turned traps off for him and the minions, but he wanted them to see for themselves. Hiding his nerves, he gingerly stepped onto the trap. Thankfully, it held, and he did not plummet to his painful death. He turned and waved to the kobolds. "Hey! Look. The traps won't activate for us. Only people or creatures who aren't official residents like us. Safe!" He bounced up and down on his toes to prove the point. Again, he ignored the tingle he felt up his spine, like the kind you get when you are standing on a glass floor and feel like it could break at any moment and let you fall.

Several kobolds looked up from their happy meal and waved in acknowledgement. It wasn't enough to take them away from the feast though.

Kai smiled at the pleasant scene. Well, pleasant from a certain perspective. If one wasn't biased regarding the partially cut-up human adventurer being served for dinner. The decapitated corpse made Kai think of the missing head. Curious, he turned to the hall and stairs and went to check the bear trap.

Sure enough, the head was there, sitting perfectly gruesomely in the steel jaws of the trap, eyes bugging out, mouth open in a surprised and pained snarl, blood absolutely everywhere. The head was firmly in place, and there was no way that Kai had the strength to open the thing by himself. He'd need the system to do that. So he backtracked and returned to the kobold room, then took the back stairs to Admin.

At the Admin console, he reset the bear trap, which would allow him to pluck the head out. Maybe the kobolds would like it? Were human eyes and cheeks a delicacy like they were for fish? The brains, maybe? The idea made him gag, but if giving the head made them happy, that's what mattered more. Kai walked over to the secret door to the first floor and then slid it open, intent on retrieving the rogue's lost head.

Darkness blotted out the room. He couldn't see a thing beyond the door.

Kai stopped with his hand on the door and stared hard, confused. He could usually see better in dim light.

The darkness waddled around in a turn to face him. The owlbear's terrifying yellow eyes looked down at him.

"Ahhhhhh!"

"Screeeech!"

"Ahhhhh!"

"Roooaar!

 

[TimBaril]

Kai had no idea that he and his dungeon were already having an effect on the wider world…



Anna



Anna sat at the simple kitchen table, the wood worn by age and countless meals, decorated with scratches and chips left by hard use and children, and the finish had long gone after being scrubbed clean multiple times a day until it looked more like cracked and gray driftwood than proper furniture. In that way, it perfectly matched a floor that was so old that it had smoothed in places from all the foot traffic and shelving that had been propped up and repaired multiple times. There was a crack in the tiny kitchen window, a victim of her husband's frequent bouts of anger, in which he sometimes threw things without a care for whether they landed, even if it meant on her, but never any money to replace something so expensive.

From the chipped red cup under her nose wafted steam, a peaceful scent of tea with just a touch of honey and a drop of milk, for it was all they could afford. The tea itself was worth its weight in gold, and if her husband knew she was indulging this way, he'd probably slap her for the luxurious expense and tell her that if she had money for tea, then she should quit whining about money to him. But the tea was soothing and brought back memories of her childhood, of good years long ago, along with the teacup itself, one of the few treasures that had managed to survive into her adult years, along with a threadbare scarf and her only book, The Heart Grows Fonder, a slim volume with a dozen different romantic adventures filled with all kinds of women and a variety of dashing heroes that they all inevitably fall in love with.

Those tales had given rise to exciting dreams as she'd grown from child to young woman. Perhaps those hopes had blinded her to the true nature of the man she'd eventually agreed to marry. Because reality had metaphorically taken the book, burned it in front of her, and then cruelly laughed in her face. While he'd seemed appealing enough in the beginning, he was everything but now. Marriage had given rise to complacency, and whatever little romantic effort he'd put into wooing her had swiftly died away when no longer necessary.

Complacency had led to control, for the less he seemed to have in his affairs outside the home, the more he sought domination over what he could, namely his wife and then his two children after they were born. For the sake of a peaceful house, she had given in, and his control had added resentment. When his own dreams of wealth and renown had failed to materialize, as much from his lack of effort as from the way he frittered more and more away in gambling halls and games all about town, he had begun taking his frustrations and self-loathing out on her, resentment becoming outright abuse.

But she'd had to stay for the sake of the kids. What other choice did she have? Her parents were too old and poor to support her. What man would want a plain-faced woman whose body, never anything to write poetry about, had been broken by the hard births of two boys and had aged faster than it might have due to years of unhappiness?

A teardrop fell from her cheek and landed in the tea. She hastily, almost angrily, brushed her eyes, willing the tears away, for what good would self-pity do?

A knock at the door.

Anna looked up, took a long second to realize what the noise was, and then pulled herself together as she stood. She didn't want to answer the door looking a mess. With a deep breath, she moved to the living room and answered the door.

It swung open to reveal Paulo, a neighbour from three doors down. Anna started in surprise.

The big lug gave her a kind smile. "Anna." Then he saw something of her mood, for the good man could be too observant at times, and his eyes pinched with concern as he frowned. "What's wrong?"

She waved him off with half a laugh, her heart lighter just seeing him. "Nothing. I'm fine. Just stressed."

They'd known each other since they'd been kids and always been friends, though her a lot less of one since she'd been married. It had not been Paulo's choice. Anna's husband had never liked her having any male acquaintances, let alone the kind of close friendship she'd had with Paulo, and her husband had made his feelings very plain. Anna had acquiesced because that was the kind of thing you did for a spouse to prove your loyalty. At least, she'd thought so at the time.

Paulo's wife, who'd come along a couple of years after Anna's marriage, had died giving birth to her third child that past summer, a baby girl. She'd never liked how intimate Anna and Paulo had been whenever they'd been in the same room, but she'd trusted her husband and chosen to trust Anna, and they'd had peace.

It had broken Anna's heart that she hadn't been able to comfort Paulo as much as she would have liked during his loss, the babe saved by the mother perishing before healing, magical or otherwise, could be applied. She'd felt an absolute traitor, guilty as sin, for not going to him in his time of need as a friend should, but her husband had only glowered at her and told her it wasn't her place no more. She'd never felt good enough to be his friend since. So it was that her moment of gladness at seeing him quickly soured into nervousness.

She asked with a tightness in her throat, "What brings you by?"

Paulo straightened a hair. He was half a head taller than her, his shoulders twice as wide from all the carpentry work he did. If she'd married him, her kitchen would no doubt look in far better shape.

Anna nearly jumped at the thought, distantly scandalized, and wondered what had brought that idea to her mind. It might have scandalized her more, but it hadn't been the first time she'd wondered what her life would be like if she'd married Paulo instead of the stranger who'd come along to woo her, a man whose appeal, she realized in hindsight had been more due to his newness than any decent quality. It was hard to see the truth of such things, though, when you're caught up in the moment. She felt worse for betraying the memory of the woman he'd loved and who had given Paulo family.

Paulo said, "I bring news. I heard from Lara." Lara was his sister, three years his junior.

Anna's brows rose. "Oh?" She'd been Lara's friend as well since they'd been kids.

A year ago, Lara's husband had run afoul of a corrupt lawman and been 'strongly encouraged' to become part of the sixth expedition to establish a new village a couple of days' walk from the city, part of the King's plan to settle the kingdom's outskirts now that the war with the elves was behind them. Of course, not all the elves were dead, not to mention the ancient forests were thick with all manner of beasts and wild things. That was why the first five attempts at settling the place had been wiped out with very few survivors. But peasants were cheap and the crown wanted what the crown wanted. It would just keep throwing lives at the issue until it got what it wanted. It was cheaper to send a new batch of indebted peasants and criminals than to send even a token force of trained soldiers to keep them alive.

Anna had been terrified for her friend when she'd learned that Lara and her family had essentially been sentenced to death. She'd been waiting in dread for the worst news ever since. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she gasped. "Lara! Is she…?" Part of her was scared, but part of her wondered why Paulo wasn't in tears. Perhaps it wasn't the ugly news Anna instinctively feared?

Paulo nodded. "She's fine. Or fine as can be in the situation." He'd have been out there alongside of his sister if he hadn't had his own children to protect and raise.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Anna's body released sudden tension.

"She sent word of your husband."

Anna's breath caught. "Yes?" Her husband had been struggling for years to bring in any sort of regular income. He'd tried and lost jobs and borrowed from the wrong people, earning himself a poor reputation. Driven to desperation, he'd taken a low-level quest from the adventurers guild, not the nice one, but the other one, a quest for collecting wood. Not having a wood-cutting license, he'd been forced to go to the kingdom's outskirts where he couldn't even cut down trees, only collect already-fallen wood. Not that he even owned either axe or saw. He'd borrowed a cart and donkey from a farmer on the edge of town on the promise of paying a third of the haul for the privilege. Then he'd gone out to the same village site that Lara and her family had been trying to develop, thinking it would be safer than some other random section of forest.

Paulo glanced down as if uncertain, then back up into her eyes. "He's not been seen in a couple of days. Donkey and cart came back out of the woods without him one night. No blood, and the animal wasn't spooked, but there was no sign of him. They searched and found nothing. Not a trace."

Anna went numb. She needed a moment to get a reply out before saying, "It's only been a couple of days. He might have passed out from the drink." Her husband had a serious drinking problem.

Paulo gave a quick shake of his head. "No booze out there. Lara says the place is dry. The warden who visits won't allow it."

"Perhaps he's been hurt?"

"Maybe. But," he paused with awkwardness and then spoke with an apologetic tone, "you know how dangerous that forest is. Lara says they searched for him, and I believe they would have done what they could, but they can't spend days out there, wandering around, or no one would be coming home."

Anna was at a loss. "So…what does that mean?"

Paulo took a breath. "I'm sorry, Anna. But there's a good chance he ain't ever comin' home."

"I…I see." An odd feeling took her, and she felt strangely light. She sagged against the doorframe.

Paulo saw the change in her and stepped forward, catching her before she could fall. "You all right?"

"I don't know." What did this mean for her? For her children? With an air of detachment, she looked over her shoulder into the house. "I haven't a thing to feed the kids. I was… He was supposed to… I was waiting…" She trailed off.

Paulo continued to hold her, tenderness in his gaze. "I told you before if you ever need help, all you have to do is ask."

"I couldn't. I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not a burden, Anna. Never were. Never could be."

That wasn't how her husband treated her. He'd treated her and kids like an anchor around his life, the source of all his bad luck. Still, he'd brought in enough coppers and shared it with them that, along with the meagre funds she earned from sewing and cleaning, it had kept them alive. Mostly.

Paulo's hands gently squeezed her upper arms, and he leaned down, making her look up in blink at him. "Anna, I want you and the children to come to my place."

"For dinner?"

"For as long as you like. Forever, if you want."

The offer stunned her. Anne snapped out of the fog she'd been in and the growing existential fear. "What?"

"My home is your home. For as long as you like or need."

"That's… That's too generous." And yet, her need was great. No, this was more than she could ever ask for. "He'll be furious when he finds out—"

"He ain't comin' home, Anna. I mean, it ain't likely."

"And if he does?"

He became bravely defiant, stating, "Then… Then he can damn well shove off. You deserve better. Your kids do." The way he looked at her said that, while he was still holding himself back, he was behaving as more than just an old friend. It was reminiscent of the way he'd looked at her too many years ago, back when she'd taken those looks for granted and found the attention of someone unknown more exciting. Young women can be so foolish.

An image flashed through her mind of something that had never happened, of the two of them standing in his house, his bedroom, in a similar position but with a little less clothing and very pleasurable intent. Her cheeks heated up with embarrassment. She felt ugly and small in his hands, undeserving. She was too pathetic to deserve being saved by him like this. She weakly tried to pull away. "I couldn't. It's too much."

To his credit, he didn't try to force her, didn't pull her to him or hold her arms too tight for her to move. He wasn't the controlling type. When she tried to run, he let her slip away. But he didn't give up. He reached for her hand, which she allowed him to take despite herself. "Anna. If you'd rather stay here, so be it. But at least let me bring by some supplies. A bag of charcoal for the stove. Some food." He reached for the purse on his belt. "At least let me give you some coin to shop with."

She started crying, which was even more embarrassing, so she tried to cover her face with her free hand. "Oh, Paulo. You can't. It's too kind. Not after the way I..."

He squeezed her hand. "I'm not proposing marriage. Though I can't say I won't someday. You're still the most beautiful girl in town. I'm just saying you're not alone. You don't have to suffer, and you sure don't have to starve. Let me help. Please?"

Weeping too much to see anything through her fingers, though they were not sad tears, she nodded and tried to speak but only laughed with embarrassment. But she did manage to squeeze his hand back and nod with the overwhelming gratitude she felt. As a wife and mother, she should probably feel much worse at hearing news of her husband possibly dying and should feel guilty for impulsively looking forward to a life without him. Instead, she could only glow with warmth at the prospect of someone loving her again and not hating her for loving them. She found herself thankful to whatever creature had suddenly gifted her the prospect of a better, happier life.

 

[TimBaril]

Kai



Kai slammed the door between him and the owlbear. He stood without moving in the Admin room, lit by the wall screen, listening to the sound of the fierce creature outside screeching and pounding on the stone wall. A little bit of pee came out. He may have had a mild heart attack. That would explain why it took a few minutes to come back to himself from the deep state of near-frozen panic he'd been in and for his brain to kick back in.

He took a shaky step back away from the door with the nightmare on the other side of it. He felt wetness on his foot, but while he took care not to step in the yellow puddle again, he was still too traumatized to feel ashamed. Maybe later. Yeah, later would work. He'd do that. He was too busy freaking out.

At the system console, he figured out that the owlbear, having chased the stupid adventurers into the dungeon, had followed, only for the automatic door to drop down behind the owlbear, trapping it in the first-floor room. It had somehow avoided the pit trap. It was very, very pissed off.

Kai could barely compute that. He stared at the huge, deadly, rampaging beast trying to find a way out of the room. Thankfully, it was too large to get down the spiral staircase to the second floor and then murder and eat everything in sight. But it was not a happy camper. "No one else is going to be able to enter the dungeon now." Another thought hit him. "The kobolds won't be able to leave!"

He turned to the console, hoping it could help. His first thought was to drop every bear trap in existence on the thing's terrifying head. Or find a way to get it into that pit trap, if it would even fit. But before his fingers went down that path on the console, he started to rethink.

Did he really want to kill it? First, it was just a wild animal, here because they'd lured it, and it did not deserve to die just because it was dangerous. Second…it was already in the dungeon. That seemed like it might be a really good stroke of good fortune. He'd totally lucked out and had a really high-level creature that would be a great addition to the dungeon. That thing would tear through baby adventurers like Kai tore through pizza.

Pizza.

Beautiful, tasty, glorious, delicious pizza in all its tomato and golden dough and cheezy goodness. The pepperoni. The mozza. The spicy sausage. Overflowing oregano. Juicy pineapple and savory onions. Back bacon and barbecue sauce. So many options…

Kai wiped away some drool. "I gotta find a way to make pizza. No way I'm going the rest of my life in this world without pizza. No way." This world had better have ham and pineapple, or he was gonna be really upset.

He saw the owlbear listed under Creatures and felt a surge of excitement. He gleefully pictured the scene in his mind:

The owlbear leaped out of the shadows at an unsuspecting party of adventurers, crushing their stupid tank beneath its awesome weight before slicing their arrogant warrior to ribbons. The haughty wizard who thinks he's better than everyone because he can cast magic throws fireballs that only tick the owlbear off. The owlbear's hooked beak tears the wizard's face off; then it hoots in triumph and dances on the corpses of the dead.

The wizard's twin, mangled in a horrible accident as a child, whose only friend in the world had been the other twin, now dead, plots revenge. He sneaks into a museum, murdering the guards guarding the treasures there and stealing all kinds of precious artifacts. Arming himself with his new magical gear, he storms the dungeon, bent on killing the owl bear.

The owlbear, having levelled up and gained ninja skills, drops out of a hole in the ceiling, raking its claws down the twin's back. The two engage in a fierce battle, swords versus claws, magic flying everywhere, battering the dungeon until the owlbear swipes its claws across the twin's neck, blood fountaining out. The twin attempts to curse the creature but only sputters as he dies, teaching us all that murder and revenge only lead to pain and death.

It made Kai chuckle, "Heh heh heh."

Unfortunately, the owlbear could not be accessed in the system. An error message came up when he tried.



The selected creature is too high-level and extremely resistant to being tamed. You can force the creature to submit to captivity by breaking its will or you can try to find a way to entice it into wanting to stay of its own free will.



Break its will? Kai could starve the thing until it had no choice but to submit or die. Kai snorted. "Like hell, I will. Screw that noise. Animal abuse is for idiots." Kai wasn't even one of those people who tried to take pics with wild animals for their social media, like the morons who would pick up a young dolphin or baby bear and hold it up to the camera for likes, stressing the animal right out.

He took a deep breath, feeling more like himself after putting some emotional distance between himself and the terrifying creature outside his door. "Hmm. So how do I get it to want to stay? That thing is freakin' angry." He tried to imagine what he'd do if it were a hostile dog. How would he win it over? Probably with food. He looked around the room. He had the pie, bread, and jerky. Oh, and the dead adventurer in the pit outside the kobold room. If the kobolds hadn't plucked it from the pit and eaten it yet.

Too bad he didn't have any more pie.

An image in his mind struck him of something he hadn't properly registered earlier. Kai frowned.

He went over to the pie that was sitting on the floor next to the barrel of jerky. The pie that he'd been eating a lot of. The pie that had somehow not gone bad and that he'd eaten the last of the other day, going so far as to lick the plate clean. The delicious apple-type pie with golden crust and sugary-white icing.

The pie that was still there. Whole. Untouched.

Kai's jaw slowly fell open. It began to water. He swallowed hard, then breathed, "It's a never-ending magical pie…" With reverence, he knelt by the pie plate, which again was the size of a bathtub to him, and plucked a piece of crust. He put it into his mouth. It was as good as the day he'd gotten it. He reached in, took a handful of baked apple goodness and held it up like an offering to the divine. "My precious…" Then he took a bite. Heavenly flavours of fruit and cinnamon and golden-brown crust melted over his tastebuds. "Oh yeah. This is still so good."

An enraged roar brought him back to the issue at hand.

"Right. Owlbear." He finished the pie in his hand, washed under the cistern, which had no drain and just made a mess on the floor, and made a mental note to build some kind of wash basin. What kind of magical dungeon didn't come with plumbing auto-installed? "Cheap piece of crap. I thought this was supposed to be a legendary dungeon. Psh."

The cistern tap creaked. Water jetted out horizontally in defiance of gravity and physics, spraying Kai right in the face.

"Oi!" He scrambled to duck out of the way, but the water unerringly came for him no matter which way he attempted to dodge. Finally, he pushed his way forward, got a hand on the tap, and closed it again.

The water stopped blasting.

Kai stared at the tap. That had been a highly unnatural way for water to act. Then he whipped his head around and stared at the console. Then back at the tap. Then the console. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. He slowly let go of the tap.

The tap spun open, and water sprayed him in the face again.

"Glug!" Kai sputtered and got a hand on the tap, closing it and cutting off the flow. Water dripping down his face, he held the tap closed for a long minute, then cautiously released it again.

No more water sprayed.

He slowly took a step back, watching the console with one eye and the tap with the other. Nothing happened. He grunted. The console didn't react at all. No messages appeared in his vision. "Hmph. Weird." Probably just some freak accident.

When he returned to the wall screen, Kai found a group of worried kobolds at the foot of the stairs leading up to the first floor. They were all armed with their new weapons, half-cowering around the corner, obviously discussing whether they should go up and investigate. Kai panicked. He couldn't allow them to get hurt. He ran out of the room and down to the second floor. He burst into the kobolds' room, waving his hands. "Wait! Don't go up!"

 

[TimBaril]

A yellow and brown kobold with a stone-bladed hatchet gripped tight in both hands, hunched with grim determination, and rounded the corner for the stairs.

Kai dashed past the others and grabbed the kobold by the shoulder, halting progress. "Wait! It's dangerous."

The yellow-brown kobold was quick to stop, obviously not wanting to go up those stairs any more than the folks hovering behind in the hallway. It pointed up the curving staircase. "Bad?"

Kai allowed himself to relax now that none of them were marching to certain death. "Yeah. The owlbear is trapped in the first room. Sorry about that."

The yellow-brown kobold's brow creased with worry. "Fight?"

Kai threw up his hands. "No! Heck no. We'd all die."

The kobold cocked his head to the side in question. "What?"

"Uhh…good question. I don't know yet. I was thinking maybe trying to feed it. Make friends?"

The yellow-brown kobold turned back to the rest of the group and spoke in their language. The others reacted in various ways, from skepticism to derision to outright laughter.

Kai allowed, "Ok, I get it. Crazy idea. Maybe. But the dungeon system says that if we can befriend it, then it can live here and help protect everyone and eat adventurers."

It was evident that most of the kobolds didn't speak whatever language Kai was speaking to them. To him, it was English, but since other people understood him in this world, he assumed he'd been given a new language, something common enough that even kobolds living in the wilds knew a few words. Not enough, though, so one of them ran to fetch Spear, who was still resting.

Spear trudged over in visible pain. "What problem?"

Kai was about to launch into it but paused. "Say, what's your name?" It felt stupid calling him Spear in his mind all the time and not knowing his real name. Even as he asked, he recalled certain slime anime and others where this kind of situation happened.

The kobold made it known that he sadly had no name. No monster did for that was something only for proper 'people' like humans. Oh, the injustice! Everyone broke out in tears and sad faces. Kai, formerly human and therefore superior for some reason, bestowed upon the noble little monster a name. Low and behold, great magic occurred. As Kai was drained of all his energy, the proud kobold glowed with brilliant rainbow light. He grew and transformed, for human-centric reasons becoming even more human-like and more attractive in human terms, taller, stronger, and granted ridiculous skills that now made him better than humans. Over the next weeks, Kai gave names to every kobold, even the babies, creating a tribe of superpowered people monsters that were going to shock and overwhelm any adventure stupid enough to look down on them. The female kobolds grew sexy human bodies, and the babies became super babies capable of punching through stone walls. The elderly became younger and stronger. They all bowed in worship and called him master before dedicating their entire existence to his happiness.

Kai hoped that wouldn't be the case here. He didn't want to be anyone's master. He was also beginning to realize that there was a strong streak of selfishness in a lot of anime and other stories.

The kobold formerly known as Spear replied, "Name Rush."

"Rush. Ok. I've been calling you Spear in my head."

Rush held up his weapon and pointed to it with a talon. "No. This spear. I Rush."

"Yeah, I— Nevermind. Got it." Kai smiled. "Nice to meet you, Rush." He held out his hand.

Rush looked at his hand. He did nothing else.

"Uh, right. Maybe not every culture shakes hands in greeting." Kai retracted the limb. "Anyway, uh, yeah, the owlbear got trapped in the dungeon upstairs. I was telling them that the dungeon system will let the owlbear live here, too, and help protect the dungeon. But we have to make friends with it first."

Rush looked at Kai like he was nuts. "It owlbear."

"Yeah."

"No make friends."

"Well, we can, like, tame it, maybe. Give it food?"

"You food."

"No! Give it jerky or bread or something. Maybe the other dead adventurer in the pit?"

The group of kobolds all gasped.

Kai hesitated and side-eyed them. "Ok…I guess we can keep the adventurer for the kobolds to eat?"

The kobolds let out the collective breath they'd been holding.

Kai figured they must really like the taste of humans. He was not going to be weirded out by that. Not right now. Maybe later in private when they weren't all staring at him. He cleared his throat. "What do you think?"

Rush arched a brow. "Have bows. Kill owlbear. Safe."

"I'd really like to try taming it first. I tamed two slimes. That went well. They're really happy here."

"Owlbear not slime." Rush squinted. "You hit head?"

"My head is fine."

"Too hungry? Not think clear?" He half turned and waved at the room where kobolds were still carving up the first adventurer. He shouted in his language, probably calling for food.

Kai waved his hands. "No, no! I'm good. Uh, I ate already." He hurried ahead before anyone could foist human sushi on him. "Look, maybe it's crazy, but I'm gonna try. Maybe it likes bread. Or jerky. Or maybe there's a river somewhere, and I can get fish. Just make sure nobody goes upstairs for now, ok? I'll figure something out." Seeing Rush's mom hustling toward him with one of those looks a mom gets when she's eager to fill you with home-cooking, which was a handful of fried Kenny, Kai fought back his gag reflex and ran past, thanking her as he went but refusing the food.

He returned to the admin area and stood before the console in thought. "Ok. How to do this?" If he opened the door to try to feed the owlbear, it would just storm in and kill him, wouldn't it? Curious, he looked for help info in the menu.



The Admin Room can only be accessed by the Dungeon Master.



He read that and thought it was kind of ambiguous. Did it mean that he was the only one who could open the doors, or did it mean that, even if the door was open, he was the only one who could pass through the opening? He could test it by opening the door and seeing if the owlbear could come through.

Or not. He wasn't that stupid.

He used the back stairs to go down to the kobold room. Rush was injured, so he didn't want to ask the warrior to climb stairs. Kai motioned to a blue kobold feeding a child. "Hey. Sorry. Can you help me? Just come upstairs for a moment?" He beckoned and pointed up the back staircase.

The blue kobold looked up at his speech, then looked around. They pointed at themselves.

"Yes, you. Help? Please?" He pointed again.

Blue hesitatingly stood and motioned as if asking if she should follow him.

He smiled. "Yes!"

They nodded, patted the child and motioned it to stay, then followed Kai up the stairs. Kai was able to pass through to the Admin room, but when Blue tried, it was as if they'd run into an invisible wall, causing surprise. They rubbed their bruised snout.

He winced. Probably should have warned them. "Oh! Sorry about that." At least it confirmed that not even residents could get into the room. It did prove that they could enter the back stairs, though, and maybe any back rooms. He thanked Blue, and to show his appreciation, he scooped a handful of apple pie onto a torn piece of bread because he had no plates and escorted her back downstairs before returning to the Admin room. He felt bad about not having a proper plate, and he was probably worrying for nothing because Blue and the others had eaten raw adventurer off a dungeon floor, but he still felt like a heel. He mentally added plates and cutlery to a mental list of things to get. Number one on that list was toilet paper. Number two was a toilet. But somewhere down the line would be things to eat off of.

Kai stood at the console. He'd started the dungeon with one front-facing or public room and one admin room. After levelling up, he'd gained the ability to form two public rooms on Floor 2, and more space thereafter with each level up. Playing with the console, he was able to build two more rooms on Floor 2 that were accessible only via the back stairs and admin door. Only the dungeon master and residents could access private areas. Visitors would be barred, probably the same way that Blue hadn't been able to enter the Admin room. He grinned. "We can build a whole private section of the dungeon for residents! The kobolds can live there, and no one will be able to hurt them."

Looking at the 3D map on the screen, it was as if two pyramids were standing next to each other. Hallways connected the pyramids, Floor 1 to Floor 1, and so on, allowing travel between the buildings. One pyramid was the public dungeon; the other was the private living area, with the Admin Room at the top.

Kai and his dungeon were currently Level 5, the top five floors of two growing pyramids that each added a floor every time he levelled up. He quickly built out public levels for Floors 3, 4, and 5 just to get something visible on the architectural map. Playing around, he saw that he could combine rooms to make them bigger. The owlbear was very large and would need a lot of space. Kai made one huge room on Floor 5 for it. To make things easier, he turned Floors 3 and 4 into single spaces as well for now. No traps. He wanted the owlbear to be able to pass through easily on the way down to 5. In the private pyramid, Kai created two private rooms next to each other on Floor 2 for the kobolds. He was able to put cisterns in each for water. He also built back stairs all the way through, connecting all floors in each pyramid.

Excited to show off the new safe area, Kai returned to the kobolds. With Rush's help, he explained about the public and private areas, then showed them to the new safe area where only residents could enter. They were universally ecstatic. While they allowed their fallen people to remain where they were for now, they enthusiastically moved everyone still living into the new rooms, exclaiming over the water supply and the safety to be had.

Kai looked around at the bare walls and floors, again embarrassed at the lack of hospitality. It looked more like a prison cell than anything. He spoke aloud, not really to anyone in particular, "Sorry, it's not much. Maybe we can build some beds and furniture? Oh, crap. We still don't have toilets. That…could be messy."

Rush's mom patted him on the shoulder, grinning with a snout of sharp teeth. "Good, good! We make. We build good!" She asked Rush something, and he translated.

"She ask, can go outside? We get grass, tree. Make things. Kobolds good makers."

Kai nodded. "Yeah. Just give me a minute. I'm going to try to get the owlbear down to a lower floor. Then we can come and go easily." The residents couldn't access the Admin room, so they couldn't use the back entrance. Unless…he could move the access to the back entrance? He'd check.

Kai returned to the Admin room in thought. He checked the system console and could, indeed, give the residents access to the secret entrance to the dungeon by connecting it to the stairwell in the private side of the dungeon. That would allow the kobolds free passage to come and go as they pleased, doing their business out in the woods while collecting wood and grass to build things with. That was great because he did not have indoor toilets nor enough slimes to take care of such things. Maybe if he had acid flies, he could use those to make acid to disintegrate waste, but they did not exist here, which was likely a good thing because one would land on him, and he would instinctively slap it, releasing the acid, which would melt him into gremlin goo. Still, the area outside the secret exit was going to get stinky fast if they kept expelling waste all over the nearby forest. They could dig latrines, but that would give away the secret exit.

Kai muttered, "Users have taken a poll. Dungeon without indoor plumbing found lacking and gross. Approval rating bound to fall the more poo piles up."

A stench of something nasty wafted through the room.

Kai actually tasted it and gagged in disgust. Slapping a hand over his nose and nearly taking an eye out with the claws he still wasn't familiar with, he looked around.

The room was empty but for him. The doors were closed.

"What the heck is that?" He gave the console a suspicious look. "Did my dungeon just fart? And what the hell have you been eating?" Then he recalled the rotting human corpses in the spike pits. And that he'd done his own business in one a few times. "Oh, right."

The awful, paint-peeling smell drifted away as swiftly as it had come, for which Kai was thankful. He shrugged. Must be air circulating from other rooms. He wasn't sure how the magical dungeon took care of that, but without fans and a duct system, it must be doing something to keep the air fresh in here. Most of the time.

He turned his attention back to the owlbear. He rearranged the public dungeon so that each floor had one room with straight stairs going from Floor 2 to 5. He left the spiral stairs in place for the moment to keep the owlbear bottled up. Gathering armloads of bread and jerky, he laid a trail from Floor 2 down to 5. Returning to Admin, he changed the Floor 1 stairs from spiral to straight.

The wall screen showed Floor 1 and how the owlbear filled much of the small room. It noticed the stairs changing right away, likely because of the grinding sound of stone on stone as it transformed. Curious, it investigated. Seeing that it was now able to squeeze into the wider space, it immediately began climbing down. No doubt, it could smell the cooked human meat and kobolds and was eager to eat.

Clapping his hands, Kai smiled in success as the owlbear found the first piece of jerky on the floor and devoured it, then waddled forward to pick up and eat the next offering, a piece of bread. Looking somewhat bemused, the owlbear stuffed its hooked beak as it made its way all the way down to Floor 5. As soon as it was in the room, Kai added a door, the kind that locked, not the drop-down type. The big creature was now safely ensconced in the big room.

He burst with triumph. "Sweet! We can drag down some bedding. Maybe build a scratching post. We'll have to figure out what owlbears like." It was like he was building a zoo enclosure. If he did it well enough, maybe the owlbear would enjoy living here, and he could make it a formal Creature.

Even as he thought that, he realized that living in a stone room underground might not be the best thing for it. The animal was used to roaming the wilds and probably had a fair bit of territory outside. Was it cruel to make it live down here in the dark? Dark.

Kai facepalmed. "Lights!" It hadn't occurred to him yet to make lights. He, the kobolds, and even the owlbear could see in the dark. It was so natural that Kai had been taking it for granted. Between that and the torch the adventurers had been carrying, Kai hadn't thought about light sources. He dove into the menu and found two lighting options: wall torch and artificial sun/moon. The torches were the same type of wooden torch the adventurer had carried, just a wooden stick about a meter long with oiled cloth on the end that sat in a metal ring and cup on the wall and seemed to burn indefinitely. It was removable, and when taken out of its place, it operated like a regular torch, slowly burning down until the fuel was spent. The artificial sun/moon was a meter-wide disc that sat in the ceiling. It emitted the exact same light from outside the dungeon, mirroring the sky above. As the sun rose, the dungeon light would brighten and mimick the sun's tint, bluer in the morning and redder in the evening. As the sun waned and the moon rose, the light would soften and changed to mimic the moon instead. It was awesome.

Kai placed the artificial sun/moon in Floor 5. When the space still seemed dark, he added two more. The room took on a patio feel, as if it were a stone room outdoors with skylights in the roof. Since there didn't seem to be a cost to how many objects he placed, he shrugged and covered the entire ceiling in lights. That made it look like there was no ceiling at all, and the room was exposed to open sky.

He crowed, "Fantastic! I love this!" It was a huge improvement. Maybe he could even introduce plants, and they would grow under the magic light. He could give the owlbear a nature space to live in. He'd have to experiment. Still, it remained a cage. He'd give it a shot, trying to tempt the owlbear into making its home here, but if the owlbear wasn't happy, he'd release it back into the wild. He wouldn't force it to live here if it didn't want to. Which reminded him that it would be fighting any adventurers or whoever came along. That was also cruel.

He sagged, his thoughts drifting. The ethics of creating your own dungeon were kind of hard. Something to think about.

Someone's voice came from behind him, "Excuse me!"

Kai jumped so hard in surprise that his feet left the ground.

 

[TimBaril]

Vance



Young, handsome, and rich, Vance Rondel was of the very wealthy Rondel family of merchants, who made their money shipping to the old world back overseas. He sat in comfort at a table in the mid-scale Black Bull Restaurant, dining on steak and eggs for lunch, with a large helping of flaked demon chillis to give the protein some kick. The restaurant was packed with patrons, busy and loud. Located on a main street, it was a popular place for people of all kinds.

With Vance were two fellow recent graduates from the Royal Martial Academy, Feckle and Peckle, one the son of a carpenter, the other of a clerk. The two had met at the academy and bonded over their similar names, which always gave them a laugh. Feckle was well on his way to becoming a giant, half a head taller than most people and muscular from a youth spent working with his father on the farm and then pumping iron in the evenings, when any sane person would be resting. Skinny Peckle was the shortest of the trio and not much of an athlete. Or of anything else.

Vance had gone to the academy to train and become the best adventurer in the city, not to waste time with friends and socializing. But the two had somehow latched onto him, and Vance hadn't minded the way they constantly looked up to him or spread the good word about him, so he'd let them stay.

Right now, Vance was blowing their minds as they ate.

Peckle gave Vance a dubious look. "Yellow goblins?"

Vance nodded with the arrogance of someone who had learned something new and enjoys the attention of being the one to share that knowledge with others, because it gives them a feeling of superiority. "Red and orange ones too."

Feckle looked highly doubtful. "What? That's not possible. Goblins are green."

Leaning forward over the table, Vance was eager to explain, "Get this. All goblins start green when they're born. But as they age, they eventually turn this ugly, muddy brown, then red, yellow, or orange." He'd found all this out just the day before at one of his father's many hosted dinners, in which he liked to rub shoulders with the right folk and foster connections. One of the attendees had been a woman from the old country, freshly arrived from overseas, who'd studied obscure monster history.

Peckle scoffed, "Oh, come on. They're monsters, not bell peppers. If that were true, everyone would have seen them. I've never heard of any colour but green."

Vance nodded, unbothered by the skepticism. He was prepared for it, expecting it, ready to blow it out of the water. Because he'd reacted the same way when he'd been told this news. Not that he'd admit that part. "That's because, across the civilized world, we're constantly culling their numbers. They live such short lives that they never get old enough to change colour. So, back on the continent of Lantara, with a hundred different kingdoms and thousands of years of settled history, they only know green goblins because they never have a chance to grow."

Peckle pointed out, "You mean ripen."

Feckle looked awkward as he thought and spoke at the same time, "Dead-eyed damsel. Does that mean they're just slaughtering kids all the time?"

Vance rolled his eyes and then sneered. "Young monsters are still monsters. You eat lamb, don't you? It's baby sheep. Veal is baby cow." He pointed down at his plate. "Eggs are fucking unborn birds and lizards. Would you have a problem with killing a baby dragon that wanted to eat you? Or a zombie trying to murder your ass if it was a dead toddler? Goblins are perfectly happy to kill you, no matter their colour or age."

Feckle slowly nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

Vance continued, getting back on track, "But that's Lantara. Here on Terrin, humans only rediscovered the continent about a hundred years ago. It's been totally wild for ages. We only started settling the place recently. Our city's what, less than thirty years old? And we spent most of that time fighting the elves, who apparently, in their nature-loving minds, didn't regularly cull all goblins they come across the way we do. So the goblins here have been growing out of control for who knows how long. Probably tens of thousands of years."

Peckle's eyes widened. "Then there could be whole goblin civilizations out there somewhere."

Vance groaned and gave a small shake of his head. "Don't be stupid, Peckle. They're goblins. They're dumb as shit. They aren't building cities and stuff. But there could be hordes of the creepy gobbers out there, breeding out of control like locusts. I'll bet there's a goblin plague just waiting to happen."

Feckle was still doing a lot of thinking, which generally wasn't his strong suit, but hadn't stopped him from trying. He often gestured with his hands a lot as he spoke, "Hold on. Goblins alone are weak, right? I mean, the green ones. They're just a joke; fighting one would be like fighting a zombie toddler. A whole bunch of little green goblins or a couple of hobs are a bronze-rank threat, right? Hobs are human-sized. A single bronze-rank adventurer might struggle with a dozen little ones or a couple of hobs, so you need to bring multiple adventurers once their numbers really start going up. And a big tribe, like a hundred or something, is a silver-rank threat."

Peckle agreed, "Yeah, cuz of swarm tactics. A hundred of the gobbers rush you at the same time, a silver ranker won't be able to hold them all off alone. But a party of silvers could. If they have a mage." His voice turned bitter, "Cuz area spells are stupidly overpowered." Peckle had wanted to be a magic user, but he'd turned out to have no talent for it, no potential, unable to grow his tiny little mana pool or do all the studying required to learn spells. Preferring a ranged ability, he'd turned to archery. He was mediocre, but better than the complete failure he'd been as a mage.

Feckle continued with a nod, "Right. A goblin chieftain is supposedly equal to a good bronze ranker or a silver ranker. A goblin lord who is still green is gold rank. But if so, what would a yellow goblin be? It's gotta be stronger, right?"

Vance shrugged, but a sly smile tilted up one corner of his mouth. "Who knows? I'm sure as shepherd shit gonna find out."

"Feckle continued, "But if they get stronger as they ripen—"

Vance cut him off, "Again, they're goblins, not peppers."

Peckle reasonably pointed out, "They sound a lot like peppers."

Getting off track again, Feckle asked, "You think they're spicy?"

Peckle looked thoughtful. "You want to eat a coloured goblin?"

Feckle rubbed his chin as he mulled it over, then shook his head. "…nah. I've done a lot of stupid stuff drunk, but I don't think I could stomach that even if I was wasted. Nasty. But, I mean, they go from green to other colours. Like peppers. Peppers ripen. So, goblins ripen."

Peckle slowly nodded, looking off in the distance. "Maybe they don't get stronger as they ripen, though. Maybe they just look different."

Feckle happily expanded on the idea. "Or maybe they change personality. Like yellow goblins are super cheerful all the time, and red ones are always angry."

Peckle joined in, "And orange ones are just, like, both annoyed and amused all the time? Ornery oranges! Or what's the word? Mercury?"

Vance snapped, "Mercurial, dumbass. Mercury is a liquid metal. And they don't ripen!"

Peckle kept going, as if not hearing Vance's annoyance, "Or maybe they get abilities or something. Like changing colour grants skills."

Vance was trying to control his temper, as he often found himself when he was with these two idiots. "Monsters don't level up. Only people do."

Peckle rambled, "Yeah, but imagine if they did. Orange gobbers would obviously gain the ability to throw fireballs, right? And yellow would be healers or really good at creating light spells. What would red do?"

Feckle joked, "Maybe they hulk out, berserker style. Like, look at me, I'm a tiny red goblin. But not when I'm angry. You wouldn't like it when I'm angry. And they get all big and shit, like three times the size, all muscle and teeth, and glowing eyes." He mimicked a hulking goblin.

Peckle mimed using a spear on someone while hulking and raging. "And murder the shit out of you."

They both laughed.

Vance shook his head in annoyed disappointment. "I'm surrounded by morons."

Feckle protested, "Aw, come on. It could happen, right?"

Peckle wiped a tear out of his eye, then sobered. "Shit, we're not foreshadowing ourselves into, like, a doomflag scenario, are we?"

Vance, who was smarter and better at everything than either of these two fools, carefully reasoned, "Think about it, stupid. If they could do that, become all stronger and stuff, and if a silly yellow goblin was stronger than a gold-rank adventurer or something, then wouldn't the goblins be everywhere? Destroying villages and cities? It would take an army to fight their tribes. But that doesn't happen. Because they're just lame-ass goblins."

Feckle soured. "Yeah, maybe. You don't have to suck all the fun out of it."

Peckle said to Feckle, "I wish I knew the spell for mage pics. If we come across any multi-colored goblins, we could take pics and amaze everyone."

Feckle bobbed his head. "We still have to bring the ears back. We bring back red goblin ears, and people will be shocked."

Vance countered, "No. We'll bring back the heads. I don't want any doubts about what we killed. We bring back a bag of heads that aren't green, and someone at the adventurers guild will take a proper mage picture. We'll be famous." He grinned, loving the idea of fame. It would be his sooner, rather than later. He'd make sure of it.

Peckle wondered aloud, "Do we even know if there are goblins around here? If people been living here thirty years or whatever, why haven't they seen many?"

Vance explained with slightly more tolerance now that the bantering had paused, "Because they spent most of that time fighting the stuck-up elves. Only had a few years of peace since. Goblins are probably smart enough to avoid the armies and big adventurer parties clearing the local area. But with the army disbanded and the elves dead, the goblins will be breeding like horny rabbits. They'll be spreading out, claiming new territory. Goblins always do. We'll see them soon enough." He was sure of it. Hells, he was looking forward to it.

Feckle's amused attitude faded, replaced with seriousness. "There are other things out there though. The region around the city is classified as silver rank with possible gold-rank threats at any time cuz of all the monsters out there. South of the city is totally off limits still, cuz elves and worse are still close. Their city was down that way before we sacked it, right? And they're holding a grudge like only an elf can, even though it's been a couple of years. We couldn't hold the area even with the army and all the best adventurers. It's totally wild land. Bronze rankers like us aren't supposed to be going out there without an escort. We're only supposed to go north, toward Babell."

Vance was unimpressed, "That's because the region between us and Babell is thick with farms and villages. It's safe. Boring."

Peckle pointed out, "They say it's still dangerous. That's why they still have patrols. Babel still has a small army, right?"

Vance waved the notion away. "We're not going south. We're not going to the boring north where everyone else is, and I don't want to compete with everyone else to track down stray cows or do odd jobs. I want experience, I want a lot of experience, and I want it now. We're going west."

Feckle and Peckle shared a glance.

Feckle cautiously asked, "Is that any different than south?"

There was only one small and very poor village south of the city and a similar one to the west, a fragile buffer zone against elven intrusion because the tree-huggers still sent raiding parties despite being a broken and largely dead people who barely reproduced, so they couldn't recover after their community was destroyed. They weren't going to launch any fresh attacks on the human city, but their use of guerrilla warfare made life for anyone outside the urban sprawl a nightmare, and they murdered anyone they came across in the forest.

The king-sponsored adventurers' guild had open quests for their ears, the same way that guilds back in Lantara had them on goblins and other low-level monsters. Except, here the elves were high-silver and gold-rank threats. And even if you didn't fall victim to arrows and steel, the forest was filled with creatures that the newcomers building a city here only had the faintest ideas about. But enough people regularly died that everyone knew to stay as far from the forest as possible unless you were desperate, greedy beyond sense, or stupid. The vast numbers of immigrants pouring into the relatively new and fast-growing city did their best to make a life as close to the urban center as possible.

Vance answered, "The king's trying to push the kingdom's boundaries, building new villages farther away. That's why the standing quests for adventurers to push farther and farther out."

"Yeah, quests for silvers and golds, not us."

Peckle soured, though he looked guilty about it. "We're gonna get dead if we go out there."

Vance mocked, "You might. I'm not. I'm only bronze because I just graduated the academy and joined the guild. They give everyone new the same bronze rank. But with all this gear, I'm silver, for sure."

Feckle and Peckle looked like the rookie adventurers they were, wearing the most basic leather armour they could buy after graduating from the training academy. Feckle, who had trained to be a front-line warrior, also had a small wooden buckler on his right arm. A cheap single-bladed axe hung at his hip. Peckle was an archer. He wore the same leathers that his best friend did, with a basic longbow in hand. It was unstrung at the moment, so it was just a light, wooden pole more than anything. A quiver of cheap, non-magical arrows hung on his back.

In stark contrast, Vance wore the kind of armor, weapons, and items — all magically enhanced — that only one of the richer families in town could have afforded. His father was one of the more prominent merchants in town, happy to fund his son's expensive career path for the prestige. Or, he had been, once Vance had risen to the top of the academy and then twice won the Bronze division for melee combat in the king's bi-annual martial tournament. An unranked student beating a bunch of working adventurers, some with years of experience, even if they were "only" bronze rank, had been something of a sensation, one that Vance had gloried in. There had been a lot of talk about the genius, dual-wielding rogue and speculation of a very bright future ahead if he didn't get himself killed in one of the most deadly careers around. Which is why Vance's father had happily handed over bags of gold to outfit his son, and then told him not to get himself killed doing anything stupid and piss away the investment.

Merchants were in a constant battle for status and legitimacy against the noble class, who were prominent, even in the new city. Plenty of second and third sons or daughters not likely to inherit back in the old world had gladly set up in the new world. Sponsoring or raising famous adventurers had a long tradition amongst the nobles, and the head of the Rondel family would yet another trophy he could parade around to prove they were just as rich, powerful, and worthy as any so-called blue bloods.

To that end, Vance wore naturally supple and light, black wyvern leather armor enchanted for toughness and silence. Under the leather, there were feather-light plates of hardened steel on his forearms, thighs, and shins, and a line of overlapping steel plates ran up his spine. He wore a thin chainmail shirt that had been looted from one of the many fallen elves in the war, enchanted to be dark brown and also for silence. It was adamantium, stronger and lighter than steel, and only mithril was better. His enchanted light armour was better than any unenchanted full-plate set a poor knight would wear.

On his back was a matching set of daggers, one with a typically flat blade, the other with a slightly twisted and pointed rod, like a thick metal knitting needle, made heavy for parrying bigger blades as well as stabbing. The latter was called a rondel, just like Vance's last name. Generations of his forebears were absolutely certain that this meant the family was descended from knights, as the rondel dagger had evolved from the earlier knightly dagger. It was much more likely that they were descended from a blacksmith or merchant who specialized in rondels, but that wasn't as glamorous, so no one chose to believe that theory. The steel for both was enchanted to maintain the sharpness of the points and edges, as well as for slickness. Thrusting steel into a body was difficult, and the bloody flesh would suck at a blade, making it hard to pull out. But Vance's weapons would slide right into and out of flesh with far less resistance than any unenchanted weapons would, like pushing a knife into mashed potatoes instead of steak. That helped him stab faster and more often.

And as he'd learned and proved, it didn't matter how big or strong the opponent was if you hit first and a lot more often while being too fast to get hit in return. Speed was meta.

With a body blessed by genetics and then rigorously honed to god-like perfection since the age of six by private trainers, Vance could make the most of the tools he'd been given. He knew that if he'd had his current gear as a student, the gap between him and the other adventurers in training would have been even larger, and the martial tournament wouldn't have been as close as it had been. He felt like a semi-divine being and was anxious to get out there and show the world what he was truly capable of.

Peckle, like Feckle, was from some nothing, middle-class family who didn't have money for anything except sending their boy to train for the year in the hope that he might become a soldier or part of the watch or, as a last resort, at least an adventurer. It's what you did with sons and daughters not smart or hard-working enough to make something better and safer out of themselves in school. Not for the first time, Peckle gave Vance's very expensive gear a look of jealousy that he couldn't entirely hide. Sullen words came out, likely before he could stop them, "Bully for you. Neither of us has any magical gear."

Vance wasn't bothered by that envy. He didn't entirely see them as a real team despite agreeing to let them accompany him as a party for practical reasons. He saw it as more of him as the leader and biggest threat, and the other two were there to assist, like pawns. "But you have me. Stop whining like a little bitch. I'm not going to let any happy yellow gobbers smile you to death."

Feckle was more diplomatic, his tone measured but also worried now that they were seriously on the verge of doing some real adventuring, "Vance, you're awesome. Truly. You graduated top of our class, no doubt. Even without the gear, you're badass. We're not arguing that. But there's a reason low-level adventurers like us aren't pouring into the city, trying to open up the new lands anymore. They tried that — and died. "

 

[TimBaril]

Peckle eagerly added, "Yeah, man. I'm with him. I think we should just go north. There's plenty of potential trouble without getting in over our heads, you know? Triton and pirate raids from the sea. Bandits. Feral boars and giant sloths rooting up farms, dire wolves attacking sheep and livestock. The three of us would be lucky to take down a single big feral boar. No chance against a giant, freakin' sloth or more than a single dire wolf. And bandits, who knows? But at least it ain't a party of six-hundred-year-old elves in magical gear or treants or arachnes or those plant monsters you hear about."

Vance scorned their fear. "The north is where all the other bronze and silver-rankers go. They're already snatching up ever job they can find; it would be too competitive. It would be a waste of time. Listen to the pair of you. Did you spend a year training to go out there and fight or sit here like fucking babies? You want to whine about danger, go join the watch."

Feckle gave Peckle an uncomfortable glance. "We just don't want to bite off more than we can chew, right? I mean, we're just out of the academy. Our levels are still low."

Peckle nodded.

Vance threw up an arm, disgusted by their weakness and poverty. "Unbelievable. You two have cold feet. I just can't even— I'm raring to go! I'm ready for this shit. I've trained for it. I have the gear for it. I can't fucking wait to get out there and level up. Prove myself. Start down the road to glory. How are you being so weak right now? You were as hyped as I was in the academy. We all couldn't wait to get our blades wet with blood."

Peckle sourly countered, "Maybe because neither of us is decked out in enough expensive magical gear to make a silver ranker jealous. And some golds."

Feckle reasoned, "We've all known people who haven't come back from going out there, Vance. You heard about that raid too, right? Gold rankers died in that. A named-rank platinum ranker died! And there were, what, twenty-four of them in that raid?" By the time he finished, his fear was plain.

Vance bit his tongue before replying, "They were basically going into a dungeon against a super villain they weren't prepared for. And the named rank was from the shit guild, not ours. Most were."

Peckle pointed out, his own fear also clear now, "He was still named rank! He had magical plate that was supposed to make him invincible, and he died. That guy single-handedly killed an adult dragon, and he died."

Vance sighed, this whole thing a hassle. "Yeah, ok. I get it. Everyone's all shook up since that happened. But we're not going into any dungeon. We're not chasing down some mad, demon-summoning mage that even the king was scared of. We're just poking around in the edge of the forest to see what's out there. We find some green gobs and take their ears. Hunt down a boar or something. We won't do anything too reckless."

Feckle rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and couldn't meet Vance's eyes. "I don't know, man…"

Vance looked back and forth between them. His frustration was more than evident, but the two weren't giving in to his wants as easily as they usually did. He could see that he wasn't going to convince them with just words. He didn't much feel like going out there alone though. So he let out an annoyed sigh and gave in. If he couldn't push them into it, he'd throw money at the problem. "Fine. Whatever. You want better gear, let's go shopping."

Peckle's eyes widened in alarm. "We can't afford—"

Vance ruthlessly cut him off, "I'm fucking buying it. I'll lend it to you. Lend, you understand? You can pay me back. Half your earnings until it's paid off."

Peckle exclaimed, "That could take years!"

Vance pointed at him. "It'd better not, or it means you suck. But you can't pay me back if you're dead, so being willing to buy you new gear means I know we'll be fine. I'm not going to waste the gold on someone who's just going to die in the forest and lose the gear. Ok?"

Peckle nervously swallowed. "Uh, yeah. Ok."

Feckle was much more appreciative, a smile blooming. "Wow, Vance. That's awesome."

Vance waved his words away. "Yeah, yeah. It ain't charity. We're all going out there, and as good as I am, I can't see and do everything myself. We'll have better odds if we're all better equipped. So I'm just making sure you're as strong as you can be and not worried about your own ass when we're in a fight and do your job properly. Got it?"

"Got it."

Peckle whined, "Half our earnings though?"

Vance just looked at him.

Peckle leaned away and changed his tune quick-like. "Yeah, half is fair. Half is fine."

"Don't get too excited, either. I'm not buying you gear like mine. This stuff cost a fortune, even for my family. We're just getting you some decent beginner gear because your poor-ass families can't help you. Basic enchantments only. Just enough to keep you alive. No consumables though. You want potions, scrolls, charged magical items, you pay for those yourself."

Suddenly much more positive, Feckle turned his smile on Peckle. He joked, "Hey. Maybe I should get colour-changing armour."

"For camouflage?"

"No. So when we come across multi-coloured gobs, I can fool them by turning different colours. They'll think I'm one of them."

Peckle gave him a once over. Feckle was the size of at least eight small goblins or two hobs. "Yeah, you're ugly enough to play a goblin."

Vance rose from his chair with impatience. "You jokers want to keep making asses of yourselves or go shopping?" He tossed down a few silvers for the meal, uncaring if there was change due, and then turned for the restaurant exit without waiting.

Vance had just stepped into the street as two figures were on their way into the eatery. They were bronze-rank adventurers, probably part of the same party. Medial, the fighter, had been one of the bodies that Vance had dropped in the last tournament. With him was some guy in robes who obviously had to be a mage. The robes didn't look enchanted, though, so he couldn't have been much of a magic user. Magic users were uncommon and could charge for their services, which meant they usually had some money. Medial had been a solid bronze ranker for several years and would probably always be one. Decent with a longsword and kite shield, but no better. He wore both on his back, out of easy reach, which was stupid, even in the city. As a rogue, going up against a knight was about the worst matchup. Vance never should have been able to get past that shield during the tournament. It had taken a minute, but he had. He could again. And without the shield, Vance would go through him like hot butter.

Medial recognized Vance at the same time. Smugness transformed his face, and his tone carried a hint of damn, I can't wait to fuck you up, when he said, "Well if it isn't the prodigy, Vance Rondel."

Vance smirked. "Aw. It's…whoever you are. Sorry, I don't bother remembering the names of nobodies and losers. Cuz I do remember that. You losing to me."

Medial's smug smile twitched. He took another step closer, hand dropping to the dagger in his belt. "That's ok. How about I carve my name into your forehead, kid?"

Vance was totally unfazed. "Looks like you can use your arm again. Good for you. Go ahead and try, if you think you have the balls."

Medial took another step.

Feckle and Peckle stepped out of the restaurant, saw the confrontation about to explode, and stopped in the restaurant doorway, uncertain.

The mage put a hand on Medial's shoulder from behind. "Maybe not in the middle of the street. At least not in this part of town. You know the guild's rules about its own."

Medial scowled.

They were all members of the king's officially licensed and supported Royal Adventurers Guild. As opposed to being part of the much rougher unaffiliated guild that was struggling and home to misfits and losers. The Royal had very strict rules about their members tarnishing their image in public because its adventurers were local celebrities who made a lot of money. Settling grudges was strictly to be done well out of sight or in proper venues, like games and arenas, where tickets and advertising could be sold after selling the feud to the public in the papers and building a nice, profitable event out of it. Spilling blood on the streets was a good way to end up hunting rats in the sewers or even losing your adventuring license.

Vance knew this and was more than happy to let the dumbass take the first swing. He grinned at the man, goading him on. Ready to take him apart like a child plucking the wings off of a fly. Medial outweighed him by a good twenty kilograms, a lot of that muscle, but Vance was utterly unconcerned. He was imbued with the confidence that comes from having been better than everyone else for a long time, including the guy in front of him.

Medial glared, but he and the dagger remained in place.

Vance's smirk grew. "Boyfriend got you on a leash, does he? Cute. Not into that kind of thing myself, but hey, you do you. Or, he does you. Whatever."

Medial hesitated, then moved forward, throwing his shoulder into Vance's as he walked by. "Watch yourself, rookie. It's a dangerous world out there. Never know what might be lurking in the shadows."

Vance rolled his eyes as the never-would-be trying to act tough. "Yeah, I do. Me. I'm a rogue. I'm the one lurking in the shadows. Fuck me, your wit's about as dull as your sword. Your long sword. Not the short sword you use on your magical boyfriend."

Fuming, Medial refused to look back, just entering the restaurant by throwing the door open.

The mage walked by with a dismissive shake of his head. "Rookie attitude like that is going to get you killed out there."

"Try me, mage."

The magic-user paused with his hand on the door. He turned back with a pitying look. "That wasn't a threat. If you were more experienced, maybe you'd understand that." Shaking his head, he followed his teammate into the building.

Vance rolled his eyes again. As if he needed advice from bronze rankers who were never going to be anything more than that. If their advice were any good, they wouldn't be bronze rank at their age. Both had to be twenty-five at least. Maybe close to thirty. Practically middle-aged. Already putting them out of mind, Vance waved to Feckle and Peckle to follow.

They spent about three hours getting new gear. They didn't go to Mandel's, one of the city's best enchanted gear shops, because that was where people like Vance, those with means, went. Instead, they went to a basic blacksmith, someone who mostly dealt in non-magical armor and weapons, with just a few pieces of lowly enchanted gear. Feckle and Peckle each got chainmail to hang over the leather armour they already wore. Plain black tabards covered the metal links, with Vance saying he'd have someone stich his family's logo on the front later.

Feckle argued, "We should have our own logo because we're a party."

Peckle, liking the idea, jumped in, saying, "Maybe a rainbow goblin with its eyes crossed out. We can be the Goblin Slayers, enemies of both green and ripe goblins everywhere."

Vance snorted. "You're not in a party until you can buy your own gear. And I'm pretty sure you have to kill some goblins to be called a goblin slayer."

Peckle looked down at himself with a lot more confidence than he'd had earlier because he was geared better. "Yeah. Definitely. Let's do that."

The chainmail was enchanted with extra durability against piercing damage and was a little lighter than normal. Feckle the tank had gotten a new kite shield with a taunting rune carved into the steel and another lightness spell so he could hold it up longer. Vance had very little respect for guys like Feckle, who tried to bulk up as much as possible and cover themselves in plate so they could face anything head on, all proud of how big and tough they were. But those guys made good damage sinks. Let them take the punishment while he did the killing. That was what had led him to associate with Feckle in the first place, when Vance was normally more of a lone wolf type.

And where Feckle went, Peckle followed, the two inseparable. So Peckle the archer got a new bow with added weight on the draw, which would help his arrows punch through armor and tougher opponents. Vance would use Feckle to draw attacks and Peckle to distract while Vance ran around behind opponents and backstabbed the living fuck out of them.

Finally, after Vance handed over a shocking amount of gold for even basic items like this because they had a touch of long-term magic on them, they went back outside on the busy city street. Feckle and Peckle were excitedly wearing their new gear, unable to take their eyes off of it and standing a lot straighter.

Vance's patience was at its limit. He couldn't believe he'd spent all afternoon outfitting his pawns. "You two finished whining about going adventuring now?"

Feckle grinned. "Yeah. This is a real basket of oranges."

Peckle pulled on the string of his new bow for the umpteenth time. "Totally whisky, man. Smooth. Thanks."

"Yeah. Thanks, Vance."

Peckle looked at Feckle. "You should have said a real basket of orange goblin heads."

"It doesn't have the same familiarity though, does it?"

"We'll just have to start using it around people. It'll catch on."

"Especially if we bring back some orange goblin heads and get our mage picture in the papers."

They grinned at each other.

Vance scowled but wasn't as put out as he appeared. The better equipped his minions, er, allies were, the better his own chances of success. Investing in them was actually investing in himself. "Thank me by paying me. You saw what that cost. So, starting tomorrow morning, we head west. I've spent enough money today. I'm not paying for horses and mules for you two, so you're on foot if you can't get your own rides. It's a least a two-day walk to the pioneer villages. Probably three since you're going to have to carry your camping gear and food for a couple of weeks."

Peckle asked, "What about you?"

Vance looked at him like the answer should have been obvious. "I'm riding my horse. And bringing two pack mules, one for my stuff and one for anything I want to bring back. Like a bag of goblin heads, if I have my way. Or whatever else we find. Guild pays for culling just about anything out of the forest. And the city is always hungry for monster parts and fresh meat, wherever it comes from." The pioneer city had grown to over half a million residents in a scant thirty years, had overflowed its walls long ago, and endured a steady influx of immigrants escaping their old countries and looking for a fresh start in the new world, especially with the war over and plenty of unclaimed land for those with the guts to take it and make it theirs. Monster meat was regularly found in the markets. Most people arrived poor and stayed that way because the city was still trying to establish itself, so they couldn't afford to be picky about what they ate.

Feckle, probably giving more concrete thought to the notion that he had to hand over half his earnings from now on because Vance had bought him gear that was a luxury to him but pocket change to a guy from a family so rich, spoke without thinking, "Not that you need the money."

"But you do. Besides, I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing it for the levels. And I can only level by pushing myself, which I can't do sitting in town like this or tracking down stray cows up north. Levels only come from trying to pass your limits. I need challenges. So be ready to go by dawn. West gate. Don't be late." Satisfied, Vance took his leave. With his first adventure all set to proceed the next day, his mood soared, and he smiled to himself as he strode home.

Whatever was out there in the old forest, it was about to die.

 

[TimBaril]

Vance rode alone down the thin dirt road out of the village, the worn ground fading into a pair of wheel ruts in no time at all. Very few people came this way. The only traffic out of the tiny village would be hunters and wood gatherers, maybe teams of armed peasants or adventurer parties probing the very outskirts of the nearby forest for herbs and animals small enough to kill. The only semi-regular traffic was coming and going from the hamlet even further west, the king's attempt to push his borders into the wild. And that traffic was minimal. The people forced to live out there did not want to be there; being forced to live on the edge of the untamed lands was a death sentence.

Vance rode a black stallion, a very fine warhorse purchased cheaply from a captain in the king's army when the army had been severely cut back after the elven war to save money. An out-of-work captain couldn't afford to maintain such a beast. Owning a horse was expensive, with stabling fees, feed, and equipment, not to mention it had to be regularly exercised, which meant taking it out of the city every day to be ridden or allowed to roam. Behind Vance trailed two mules, one tan, the other white. Vance's equipment, tent, water, and food were split between the pair.

Feckle and Peckle were hours behind and would probably stop for the night in the village Vance was already putting behind him, unwilling to waste time. The pair were on foot, though Feckle had wrangled an ox and tarp-covered cart to haul their gear, food, and water. They were much slower, and Vance could only suffer their non-stop, idiotic banter for so long. Better they catch up because Vance wasn't going to waste a second of his life if he didn't have to.

Vance planned to reach the furthest kingdom hamlet that night and make it his base of operations while he explored the nearby forest and lands. Despite human resettlement in the area for three decades, very little exploration had been done, and the forest was as wild as ever. From atop the stallion as the kilometres passed, Vance watched the ancient trees and brush that had been hacked down to allow this narrow track to exist. In places, you could see for some distance because there was so little underbrush beneath the stately oak trees. But in others, the forest floor was thick with ivy and thorn bushes, the trees blanketed in moss and mushrooms. It was old growth, the forest gloomy and silent, another world.

When Vance looked at the forest, he saw two things: levels and money just waiting to be harvested. There were monsters and elves and other things galore to be fought and killed, precious opportunities for the brave and bold, like him, to grow and become stronger. Vance was twenty. He would be silver rank before his twenty-first birthday. He'd made a vow of it, and he intended to hit that milestone, no matter how improbably others may think it.

A tree had been chopped down and fallen alongside the pitiful road. The branches had long been chopped off, probably for fuel, and the trunk, nearly as wide as Vance was tall, was half-buried in grass, vines, and bush as the forest reclaimed it. The tree made perfect cover to hide behind. Tall grasses rustled. A male figure stepped out, followed by two more. All were masked with filthy bandanas.

The one in the lead, wearing homespun wool shirt and pants and a leather jacket, raised a hand in greeting, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. "Hail, friend."

Vance slowed his horse and came to a stop. His eyes lazily travelled over the trio. The two in the back were armed with woodcutting axes. No archer amongst them, which was stupid, unless they were lying in hiding, perhaps aiming to shoot their prey in the back. Vance replied, "Friends don't normally wear rags over their faces to hide their identities."

The thug's eyes twinkled. "Hide? No, no. It's to protect against bugs. You know how it is."

"Uh-huh. So you don't want me to hand over all my valuables, give you my animals, that sort of thing?"

The man chuckled. "Well, now that you mention it, I sure would appreciate that kind of generosity. As you can see, we are folks with very little. You appear to be someone with money to spare."

Vance studied him. He was not impressed. "You know there's no traffic on this trail, right? So there's no reason for bandits to be here. No one to rob. You're obviously from the hamlet ahead. And since I'm heading that way, I'm obviously going to recognize you when I'm walking around. Covering your faces like this isn't going to hide who you are. I'm going to recognize your voice, too."

The thug's amusement abruptly died. He stared at Vance for a long few moments before pulling down the cloth he'd used to cover the lower half of his face. "Well then. Not like we were hiding ourselves. You must have the wrong idea, friend."

A smile crept over Vance's lips. His body tingled with rising anticipation. His hands itched to grab his daggers and unsheath them, but he didn't go for his weapons yet. He was enjoying this. "Yeah? So, what? You're going to give up, just like that?"

"Give what up?" The man shrugged, faking nonchalance, though he was obviously unhappy. "We're not here to rob you. You're mistaken."

"Oh? That so? Because you look like bandits. No. Like really stupid, lazy, morons pretending to be bandits. You were probably, what, out chopping wood or something, saw me coming, and thought you'd rob me? Crime of opportunity, is that it?"

The man's jaw flexed before he replied, "Nope. You're mistaken." Though he didn't look happy about it, he seemed to have changed his mind about robbing anyone that day.

But Vance wasn't about to let it go so easily. This was too exciting. He threw a mocking smile at the sullen man and his quiet cronies. "Come on… Are you sure you don't want to have a go? I mean, you know how much my horse is worth? This saddle? It's enchanted, you know." He waggled his eyebrows to taunt them.

The two peasants in the back exchanged a glance.

Vance continued, "I have a whole purse just full of gold. Well, not a purse, it's actually an expensive magic bag. And it's not full of gold, but I'll bet there's more in there than your entire hamlet has seen…ever. Because I'm rich. I come from a really rich family. But hey, good thing you're not real bandits, right, because who knows how much I'd be worth as ransom."

The man glowered at Vance. But hearing the two others whisper behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. The three men exchanged whispered words. All three cast glances Vance's way, weighing him, judging him. Twice, Vance caught one of the men surreptitiously look off to the side and behind Vance. So maybe they did have one or two more in hiding, possibly with bows.

Vance wouldn't give the game away by looking over his shoulder, but he didn't like the fact that someone might have an arrow pointed at his back. Actually, the more he thought about it, maybe it only made things even more exciting. He might be in real danger here. His heart beat faster, and though he tried to appear relaxed, he tensed, ready to move the second anything happened. He found himself eager for something to happen. He quietly slid his feet almost out of his stirrups so he'd be able to get out of the saddle faster.

The trio on the ground came to a decision. The leader seemed to regain his bravado, and the three men separated, the two axe men going wide to flank Vance.

Vance grinned. "Changed your mind, huh?"

The leader snarled in annoyance, "Fuckin' rich pricks. Shoulda kept your mouth shut."

"Your mom didn't. Opened right up for me. Just begged for my rich prick."

The leader threw up an arm. It was obviously a signal.

Vance threw himself sideways.

An arrow whizzed over the stallion and into the branches on the other side of the trail.

Even as he was falling off the horse, Vance was reaching for the long knives strapped to his lower back. The moment his feet touched the dirt, the weapons came free.

The nearest axe man lifted his weapon and charged. His expression changed to one of surprise as, rather than run, Vance charged.

Vance slipped inside and past the clumsy chop of the axe, letting the blade whoosh by him. He flicked his flat-bladed dagger out, nearly severing the man's arm at the elbow. Then he drove the point of the heavy, twisted parrying rondel into the man's shoulder, as easily as stabbing a pin cushion. The rondel had originally been designed to block powerful sword strikes and to punch through chain and plate armor, so it went through the man's flesh and shattered his upper arm bone without effort. Screaming in pain, the man fell to his knees, his arm ruined and bleeding badly. It had taken only a few heartbeats. Vance went for the leader next.

The leader was drawing his sword and had been about to go to his ally's rescue when he saw the man fall. Seeing Vance charge, he went into a defensive pose instead.

Vance was a rogue, not a dual-wielding warrior. Rogues generally preferred to strike from behind or to attack while their target's attention is elsewhere, like on one of those big, dumb tanks covered in armour. While Vance enjoyed that too, there was a particular thrill to be found in one-on-one battles where he tested himself against someone else, head-to-head, to prove who was better. The need to best his opponents struck a powerful chord deep inside him, and he lived to win. So while other rogues often tried to fade into the shadows, Vance dashed forward, right at his opponent.

The leader breathed deeply and braced with his sword, ready to defend.

Vance blew right past him, heading straight for the other axeman. Because the third man used his axe the same way he chopped wood, the slow, overhand chop was easy to see and avoid. Vance slid sideways around the down-coming axe, then drove his dagger into the man's upper chest, all the way to the hilt. The wound was just below the collarbone, far from the heart, though maybe he'd nicked a lung. But it wasn't immediately life-threatening. Sensing movement to the side, Vance smoothly shifted, turning the impaled man and putting him between Vance and the movement.

An arrow thudded into the axeman's back. He jerked and croaked with surprise.

Vance withdrew the dagger so the man could collapse on the ground. He'd probably die soon enough without excellent medical attention. Not that Vance had any intention of assisting him with finding any. Vance turned his attention to the leader. If the archer was smart, they were running after shooting their ally.

The leader was backing up, sword point raised to the sky, his free hand raised palm up. "Hold. You've killed one man. Let's let it end there."

"I didn't kill him. Your man shot him in the back."

"This is all easily explained. We mistook you for a bandit on the road. Both sides fought in self-defence 'fore we realized we were all in the wrong."

"Ha. Pretty clever. Thing is, you're the only one who made a mistake." Vance lightly lashed out with the dagger, a simple, straightforward lunge only meant to test the man's defences.

The leader parried. He made no attempt to strike back. "Look, no sense in hurtin' anyone further. Surely we can come to an agreement."

Vance grinned. "Why?" He darted closer. Dagger and rondel casually probed the other man's defences. Well, casually to Vance.

The other man was obviously not nearly as much of a fighter. Still, he must have had some experience and training because he kept both weapons at bay as he backed up and tried to circle away from Vance.

Vance knew he easily outclassed the would-be bandit. He could have ended this in a single, deadly flash. But what fun would that be? He couldn't keep the smile off his face as he pushed the other man backwards. He flicked the dagger at the man's head, forcing the sword in a high parry, and opening him up for a kill shot Vance didn't bother to take. Then he dove low, forcing the man to quickly bring his sword down, leaving his upper body very vulnerable.

Vance laughed. "Look at you. You're barely tolerable at this. I'm pretty sure I could beat you with one hand tied behind my back. While drunk. And sleep deprived."

The leader of the failed bandit trio grimaced. It was easy to tell from his expression that he was scared, but he was doing an admirable job of overcoming it, frowning with concentration. "Enough of this. We are desperate men. We acted desperately. It was a mistake."

"I'll say." Vance feigned moving left, then lunged right, nicking the man's upper arm just enough to penetrate the leather jacket and draw a few beads of blood.

The man, to his credit, didn't wince. Given his rough appearance and likely years of hard labour, he was probably no stranger to a little pain. He kept his plain longsword between them. "You don't have to kill anyone."

Vance felt himself slow for a few moments at the idea of killing. He'd never taken a life. Well, not a person's anyway. He'd killed animals before, but that was it. Was he going to kill these men for attacking him?

He glanced at the axe men. One still lay curled on the ground, arm bloody, weeping at the pain. The other lay on his stomach, wheezing, blood bubbling on his lips. The arrow in his back must have punctured a lung, which was now filling up with blood. With medical attention, he could probably be saved. There was no sign of the archer.

He could kill these three without trouble. Even if the archer escaped and told his own tale, Vance would surely have no trouble convincing any authorities who cared that he'd been attacked and had killed in self-defence. No one with half a brain would believe that Vance, with his far superior gear and training, had ever been in any real danger. Yet, an accident could have happened. The archer might have shot Vance in the back instead of his own man. Maybe it would look like Vance had been vengeful in taking their lives, but legally, he'd very likely escape any serious inquiry, let alone charges. Especially with his family's money.

What if these men had friends who would come looking for revenge? Unlikely. They were too poor. If anyone did get upset, a few gold in hand would probably buy off their anger or pain.

And if he did manage to chase down the archer and end him before he could tell his tale, there'd be absolutely no one to counter any story Vance managed to come up with. Not that anyone was likely to care enough to question anything. This was the edge of the kingdom. These men had very likely been sent here as expendable tools, and their deaths would be no great loss. They might even be convicted criminals. Who knew? Heck, Vance could drag their bodies into the forest, and everyone would probably think monsters had gotten them.

The point was, if Vance wanted to kill them. He could get away with it with almost no risk.

So, should he?

 

[TimBaril]

KAI



Kai was no longer alone in the Admin Room. A few paces away stood a figure, possibly a man, possibly a woman in a man's body, possibly a cosmic being that was completely without gender but whose form accidentally resembled what Kai thought of as a stuck-up male. He was mostly human in appearance, though his proportions were odd. He was probably a little taller than the average human, and very slim except for a bulging pot belly below a narrow waist that looked like someone had shoved a basketball under his shirt. It was completely at odds with his knobbly knees and elbows, though it kind of matched his oversized bobble head. His pale, round face had jowls. His eyes sat behind huge, round spectacles, and were small and cruel, while his lips were twisted in a permanent sneer. He wore a severe, black, mandarin-style suit that looked cheap, and he carried a white, plastic clipboard. He was also badly balding. The entire front half of his head was as smooth as glass. He had a very thick head of black hair in the back, but it was obviously fighting a losing battle. In fact, the glare from the bald part was so bright, and just in the wrong spot under the room's lighting, that it caused Kai to squint just looking at him.

Kai studied him up and down twice before exclaiming, "Who are you? And how'd you get in here?" He almost held a hand up to prevent the light off the bald head from blinding him, but worried it would be rude.

A frown joined the man's contemptuous gaze. "Are you the administrator of this dungeon?"

Kai hesitantly answered, "…maybe?"

"I shall take that as a yes." The unknown man held up a long-fingered hand and beckoned. "Seize him at once."

From out of nowhere appeared two very muscly men in black rogue outfits and what looked like biker helmets with mirrored visors. One enforcer wielded a thief catcher, which was a long pole with a loop of metal rope at the end. It was designed to slip over an arm or leg or around a neck, and the more one struggled, the tighter it got. The other enforcer held out a set of manacles that were covered in glowing blue and green runes.

Kai was stunned at the sight of them. He'd thought he was the only one allowed in here. "Wait! Who the hell are you people? What's going on?" He backed up a couple of steps, freaking out.

The second enforcer stopped. He looked at the manacles, then at Kai. Then he looked over at his partner. "Did you bring any smalls?" He held the manacles up. They had obviously been designed for someone human-sized. "I only brought these and larger."

His partner shook his head. "The target is tiny. Just put one around his neck and the other his waist. They don't have to be on his wrists or ankles. As long as we have two on him and locked, the seal will kick in."

Kai threw his hands up, very much panicking. "Stop! There's gotta be a mistake here. I haven't done anything wrong."

The one in charge rolled his beady little eyes. "Like I haven't heard that before."

Kai protested, "Don't you have to read the charges off or something? Investigate? I swear, you're making a mistake. I'm no criminal!"

The one in charge pointed a long, thin finger at the console behind Kai. "You're in the Admin Room and using the interface. Obviously, you're the one who stole this dungeon core and are now attempting to utilize it. Although how anyone could possibly think we wouldn't be able to track down a core after it's been initialized is the height of idiocy. Of course, we were going to catch you, thief."

"I'm no thief! I bought this dungeon core! I paid for it, sorta."

"You can't fool me, thief."

"I signed a magical contract!"

The one in charge studied Kai for three long seconds. Then he held up a finger. "Hold."

The two enforcers came to a halt.

"Show me the contract."

Kai grew nervous. "Well, I don't have a copy."

"Feeble lies—" The man took a half step forward.

The light off the shiny pate glared brighter than before, making Kai flinch before desperately protesting, "I'm not lying! I swear. I was just sitting in the forest one day, starving, no idea how I got here. It definitely wasn't by choice. Then some guy comes up and knocks on the door to the cave and asks me if I wanted to buy a dungeon. I thought he was nuts, but he showed me all these cubes. And he offered me food. I was so hungry, I didn't know or care what was going on so when he produced some fancy scroll of paper hanging in the air, I signed it and started stuffing my face, and when I looked up later, he was gone. The contract too. I swear, it's the truth!"

The man raised his clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other, and began writing. "So you confess to the purchase of stolen goods."

"What? No! I had no idea they were stolen."

"You thought buying a dungeon core off some strange man in the woods was a legitimate purchase? A dungeon core?"

"I didn't even know what a dungeon core was! I didn't believe him when he explained it. I thought he was nuts. He didn't even want any money. All I cared about was the food."

"You expect me to believe that?"

Kai pleaded, "Dude, I'm not even from this world. How could I possibly know what a dungeon core was? I'd never even seen magic before."

The man's frown deepened. He snapped his fingers; it sounded like a small gunshot going off. Then he fired off a series of what sounded like skill names, "[Biological Analysis], [Space-Time Coordinates Check], [Quantum Code Breaker]." He went quiet and his vision relaxed as if he were staring off into the distance. His eyes twitched back and forth as they rapidly read something nobody else could see. After a while, his vision focused again. "I see. It appears part of your story is the truth; you are not from this planet, and have only recently arrived." He seemed to find that very curious but said nothing more.

Kai sagged with relief. "Thank you! Yes. I'm telling the truth."

"This does not absolve you of your guilt. You willingly purchased stolen property of incredible value."

"But I had no idea it was stolen."

"Ignorance does not excuse breaking the rules."

"Come on! Be reasonable. I wouldn't have bought it at all if I'd known it was stolen." An idea struck him. Maybe there was a way to get out of this. "Wait. You want the real thief, right?"

One of the man's brows rose. "Yeess..."

"I could describe him. Maybe draw a picture."

"Very well. Proceed."

"Uh-uh. No way. I want immunity or whatever first."

"We are not police or some kind of government agency. We don't grant immunity."

"Sure you can. I'll help you catch the jerk who sold me this thing, and you promise to not punish me for being a victim of someone else's crime."

The man barked a disbelieving laugh. "And I suppose you'd like me to leave you with the dungeon as well."

"Uh…sure? I mean, I did sign a contract." Kai had no idea what would happen if he lost control of the dungeon. He might be fine, but what would happen to the residents? Would they just kick the kobolds out or shut the dungeon down to reclaim the core and kill everything inside? Even if the residents were allowed to leave, where would the kobolds go? He's promised them a home, and he wanted to keep that promise.

The man shook his head. "You never signed a contract with us."

"Fair. Ok. But, um…" Kai tried to think fast, which wasn't his strong suit. "You guys are some kind of business then? I mean, you make these dungeon cores and sell them or plant them or something? The sales guy mentioned something about making payments. Could I just pay you instead of him?"

This idea gave the man pause. He stared at Kai without blinking for some time, his fingers absently tapping his clipboard. Finally, he said, "If you did sign a magical contract, the terms are binding. The contract must be annulled or destroyed to cancel it."

"Can you do that if you catch the guy?"

"If he is in possession of the contract, and thereby we come into possession of it. Perhaps." The man became thoughtful. Then he walked over to the console. He directed Kai to show him various things in the system, which Kai was perfectly willing to do. After, he stepped away. "Very well. It appears that you are managing competently. First, you will provide me with an exactingly accurate description of the thief. Second, from this moment on, you will make payments to us as if you had officially and legitimately come into possession of this dungeon core. Starting immediately."

"Wait, uh, what? I mean, thanks?" He nervously wrung his hands. "What kind of payments? I don't have any money." He tried to look up at the man as he spoke, but it was as if the stranger were standing right under a spotlight, and his bald forehead somehow caught the light and perfectly reflected it all into Kai's eyes, making him squint worse than before.

The man waved the two enforcers off. Both backed away but remained visible and intimidating.

The man began writing inhumanly fast on his clipboard and spoke without looking. "You will submit monthly payments, beginning with the first of next month. Your initial deposit will be 100 gold, and subsequent payments will increase in accordance with the growth of the dungeon."

"100 gold!" Kai was staggered. That seemed like a lot of money. To be fair, he had no idea how much a gold was worth in this world, but it sounded expensive. "Where am I going to get that kind of money? And I have to pay every month?"

"That's your problem, and yes. I suggest you start aggressively monetizing the dungeon. If you fail to do so, and cannot satisfy your payment schedule, we will be back to apply the consequences. In full. Painfully."

"Uh, great. Ok. Thanks, um…" Kai shook his head. He'd somehow survived being arrested, but now he was on the hook for money he didn't have and with only a month to get it! Out of the frying pan and into the fire. "Sorry, you never mentioned your name."

The man finished high-speed writing on his clipboard and leaned in Kai's direction as he spoke, "I am Cornelius Fizzlesplooge, Delinquency and Recovery Department. Remember the name well."

It had been hard enough as it was to look at the guy because of how shiny his head was, but as he leaned forward and more of the light caught it, Kai involuntarily winced and blinked.

Cornelius's eyes narrowed in a way that boded nothing but ill to come. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry, what?"

Cornelius straightened, visibly offended. The man's ire was rising. "What's wrong? Multiple times, you have flinched at the sight of me. Am I so ugly you can't even look at me?"

"What? I never said that."

"I can see the way you've been looking at me this whole time, like the sight of me makes you uncomfortable." He leaned forward again.

Kai barely kept himself from raising a hand to block the forehead glare, but squinted so hard his eyes watered. "That's not true!"

Kai's reaction was not missed, and Cornelius's anger rose further. "And yet here you are, it's so bad it makes you flinch away. Again!"

"That's not what made me—!"

"No? Then tell me why the sight of me disturbs you so much. Is it because I'm so hideous that it pains you to look directly at me, or are you so filled with prejudice for someone of my kind that it's unbearable to be in my presence?"

"You're getting this all wrong!"

"The amount due is now 200!"

Kai's eyes snapped wide open. "What? Wait a minute!"

"You object?

"Yes!"

"300!"

Kai began panicking all over again. "Stop! Stop it! I have nothing at all against you. I have absolutely no opinion on the way you look at all."

Cornelius sharply inhaled. "Then it is racism. 500!"

It was going from bad to worse! Kai rushed to explain, "I'm not racist or speciesist or, or, whatever-ist. I'm not prejudiced at all! It's just because of the way the light is reflecting off your head; it's blinding." He pointed at the ceiling.

Cornelius's expression turned stony. He stared. Did that mean he was more or less angry?

Kai stared back, but was filled with nerves. He was going to owe 500 gold? Every month? That was outrageous! He had to find a way to apologize for the misunderstanding and talk the man back down. He blurted out an explanation, rambling, "Look, I'm sorry, ok? It's the lighting in here, maybe the angle. I'm very short. It's just that as you were standing there, the light was hitting your head a certain way and you're bald and I don't know if you wax it or something or you have some kind of alien super oil you put on it or something, I'm sure it's very fashionable to ladies who love bald men or whatever, but we're both standing in just the wrong spot and the glare hit my eyes and I flinched, ok? It's just a lighting thing, I swear! I'm sorry." Kai looked at the man, pleading with him to understand.

The man stared. After a long, awkward silence, he seemed to calm ever so slightly, though muscles in his face twitched like he was barely suppressing rage or possibly had things crawling around under his skin. "Very well. I shall choose to have faith in your character this once, and forgive you. Apology accepted." He reached out a hand to shake, and because of their height difference, he bent at the waist and leaned down again.

Light flared off his bald pate like never before.

It stabbed Kai right in the eyes. "Ah!" He threw up his arm, painfully blinded and even backed up a step at the sudden onslaught. He rapidly blinked tears out of his eyes. Then he stopped, realizing with growing horror at how he'd just reacted. "Oh crap." He tried to lower his arms and give the man an apologetic smile.

The man's face twitched, flinched, and morphed into raw fury. He snapped his hand back and straightened. He roared, "The truth speaks for itself!"

"Wait!"

The man snarled and shouted, "You racist bigot! 1000 gold!"

"Noooo!"

An imperious finger shook as it pointed right at Kai, and the eyes behind the oversized spectacles blazed with hatred. "One month! You had better have the gold. Or else!"

"What if I don't? What if I can't pay?"

"Then no dungeon for you!" The man whirled, snapped his fingers, and an oval appeared in the air, filled with black and white noise like you saw on old TV sets in the 20th​century when they couldn't get a signal. With a deep, "Hmph!" he strode through the portal on his skinny legs, quickly followed by the enforcers, and the portal snapped shut behind them with a sharp pop.

Silence filled the room.

Kai broke out of his shock and furiously raged at the empty space where the man had vanished. "Cueball! Chrome dome! Egg head! Got a bit of an insecurity complex, eh? Temper with a hair trigger? Couldn't even hair me out? If you're gonna polish it that much, it should come with a glare warning! If I had a candle and an island, I could guide ships at sea with that head!" He stood there, panting, his heart racing.

Fortunately, nobody was around to hear him lose it.

Kai fell to his knees, anger draining from him, replaced with despair. He clutched at his head. "1000 gold. I don't have any gold. How the hairless bald man am I gonna come up with 1000 gold in a month?"